Outspoken Turkish deputy says Erdoğan’s AKP will be shut for crimes

Turkish Workers' Party (TIP) parliamentarian Ahmet Şık said the country’s ruling parties would be shut down for becoming centres of criminality should they lose power.

Şık, speaking on Medyascope news channel, said the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) would be closed and some of its members prosecuted following elections next year, the Duvar news website reported on Tuesday.

"We will not leave the opposition to the AKP or the MHP. They will be a mess… All will be tried for being members of a criminal organisation,” he said. “Let the clean ones stay in the parliament. But the AKP will be closed because of this!

"The AKP will be shut down because it is a criminal organisation. They will say it is a criminal organisation disguised as a political party."

Şık, an investigative journalist, was detained in 2011-12 for writing a book about the clandestine Islamic movement of Fethullah Gulen. Since his acquittal in 2016, he has been detained on two occasions for his work, including for Tweets considered to be terrorist propaganda.

In 2018, Şık won a seat in parliament for the pro-Kurdish Democratic People’s Party (HDP). In 2020, he resigned citing political differences and sat as an independent for a year before joining TIP.