Erdogan steps up crackdown on Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party and civil society

The HDP, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, is facing renewed pressure in Turkey amid rising calls for its closure by nationalist politicians in Ankara.

HDP members are being increasingly targeted after the deaths of 13 Turkish hostages in Iraqi Kurdistan earlier this month following a botched rescue operation.

Merve Tahiroglu, the Turkey Program Coordinator at the Project on Middle East Democracy, discusses this latest crackdown on Turkey’s third largest political party, and explores what the implications are for Turkish democracy.