JINHA

IZMIR – Turkish police arrested nine students in an early-morning house raid targeting student supporters of the HDP in Izmir.

With less than a month to go until Turkey's June 7th elections and the left opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) posing a serious challenge to Turkey's ruling AKP, repression against HDP students and youth is continuing.

The raid targeted nine HDP-affiliated students at Izmir universities Ege and Dokuz Eylül. Police reported that the charge against the students, who are being held at the local anti-terrorism office, was attending gatherings on May 1, International Workers' Day.

This is the second police attack on HDP students in Turkey in two days. Yesterday, police attacked students at Antep University after students from the extreme right party Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) opened an election stand directly across from theirs. As HDP students began chanting anti-fascist and pro-Kurdish slogans, police set up a barricade between the two groups. As the tensions continued, police turned on the HDP students with pressurized water and tear gas. Some students were taken to the Antep University hospital, while police arrested others.

(pz/zd/ck/fk/cm)