Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has signed a bill to amend the constitution and lift lawmakers’ immunity from prosecution in a move widely interpreted as paving the way for trials of pro-Kurdish opposition members of the parliament.
Turkish prosecutors have been investigating 138 lawmakers on terror-related charges. Of those, 101 belong to either to Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), or to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the third-largest party.
The HDP last year became the first pro-Kurdish political party to win seats in the parliament. Erdoğan claims it is connected with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been fighting the government in the country’s south-east for years.
The HDP, which denies the link with militants, fears a large majority of its MPs could be jailed under the new law, the Guardian reports.
Erdoğan’s increasingly authoritarian rule has prompted concern in the EU, which relies on the Turkish president’s support as it tackles the Continent’s refugee crisis.