section_path: Organization/Political representation/Alleged political representation
section_name: Alleged political representation
paragraph_text: Alleged political representation
  
  The organization had sympathizer parties in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey since the beginning of the early 1990s. The existence of direct links between the parties and the PKK have several times been a question in Turkish politics but also in Turkish and European courts. In sequence HEP / DEP / HADEP / DEHAP / DTP and the BDP, which later changed its name to Democratic Regions Party (DBP) on 11 July 2014, as well as the HDP and then DEM have been criticized of sympathizing with the PKK, since they have refused to brand it as a terrorist group.
  
  Political organizations established in Turkey are banned from propagating or supporting separatism. Several political parties supporting Kurdish rights have been reportedly banned on this pretext. The constitutional court stated to find direct links between the HEP / DEP / HADEP and the PKK. In 2007 against the DTP was initiated a closure case before the constitutional court which resulted in its closure on 11 December 2009. In 2021, against the HDP was also initiated a closure case during which the HDP is accused of being linked to the PKK. It is reported that Turkey has used the PKK as an excuse to close Kurdish political parties. Senior DTP leaders maintained that they support a unified Turkey within a democratic framework. In May 2007, the co-president of DTP Aysel Tuğluk, published an article in Radikal in support of this policy.
  
  Several parliamentarians and other elected representatives have been jailed for speaking in Kurdish, carrying Kurdish colors or otherwise allegedly "promoting separatism", most famous among them being Leyla Zana. The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Turkey for arresting and executing Kurdish writers, journalists and politicians in numerous occasions. Between 1990 and 2006 Turkey was condemned to pay €33 million in damages in 567 cases. The majority of the cases were related to events that took place in southeastern Anatolia. In Iraq the political party Tevgera Azadî is said to have close to the PKK.