By Sena Guler
ANKARA (AA) – The picketing of a Turkish lawmaker’s mother’s funeral in Ankara — which forced the grieving family to later exhume the body — has been condemned by Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag.
Bozdag, speaking at Anadolu Agency’s Editor’s Desk in the Turkish capital on Thursday, said the scenes at the burial of Aysel Tugluk’s mother on Wednesday were “unwelcome” and the government did not approve.
Tugluk, a lawmaker for the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) is currently in jail and on trial for terrorism-related offenses. She had received special permission to attend the burial of her mother, who died Wednesday, aged 80.
However, a crowd of 20-25 men staged an angry picket of the funeral in Ankara’s Incek cemetrary.
After the incident, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said security had been provided in the area.
However, the family decided to exhume the remains and transport them for burial in the family’s home province of Tunceli, hundreds of kilometers away in eastern Turkey.
Tugluk, a deputy co-chair of the HDP, is one of several HDP lawmakers currently in jail facing terror charges. The government accuses the party of links to the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU and U.S.
