ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Police on Tuesday detained a man who wounded one person during a knife attack on a branch of a pro-Kurdish party in Istanbul, Turkish media reports said.
The assailant entered the People’s Democratic Party, or HDP, office in Istanbul’s Bahcelievler district and threatened to kill everyone inside the building before wounding one person, Cumhuriyet newspaper reported.
It was the second attack on an HDP building this year. In June, a gunman stormed the HDP’s office in Izmir province, in western Turkey, killing a female employee.
Recalling the attack on their building in Izmir, the HDP tweeted that Tuesday’s assault wasn’t “an isolated one.”
“These attacks can’t intimidate us,” the party said. “Our people are giving the strongest response by protecting their party and will continue to do so.”
The HDP, the second-largest opposition party in Turkey’s parliament, is the subject of a widespread government crackdown, with party members being accused of supporting an outlawed Kurdish militant group. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called party members terrorists.
Thousands of pro-Kurdish activists, along with lawmakers and the party’s former leaders, have been imprisoned.
The HDP is also fighting a legal action seeking its closure for alleged links to militants.
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