Illegal political parties in Turkey lists those organisations founded in or carried out activities mainly targeted to Turkey that (a) consider themselves to be
political parties
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...
as indicated in their self-assigned names, (b) are not or cannot be established under the laws of
Republic of Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
.
Some of these organisations have carried out
terrorist
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
activities and hence can also be classified as
terrorist organisations. Indeed, Turkish public authorities prefer either that denomination or that of illegal organisations (''yasadışı örgütler'' in Turkish). However the term illegal political party (''yasadışı siyasal parti'' or ''yasadışı siyasi parti'' in Turkish) is also used in official documents.
Active illegal parties
According to Counter-Terrorism and Operations Department of Directorate General for Security (
Turkish police
The General Directorate of Security ( tr, Emniyet Genel Müdürlüğü) or Turkish Police Service ( tr, Türk Polis Teşkilatı) is the national civilian police force responsible for law enforcement of the Republic of Turkey, which is affiliated w ...
) there are 13 active terrorist organisations in Turkey 11 of which are illegal political parties:
*
Communist Workers Party of Turkey
Communist Workers Party of Turkey ( tr, Türkiye Komünist İşçi Partisi) is an illegal communist party in Turkey. TKİP was founded in November 1998 by EKİM (October), a group that had split away from the Revolutionary Communist Party of Turk ...
(TKİP)
*
''Devrimci Halk Kurtuluş Partisi/Cephesi '' (DHKP/C) (Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front)
*''
Maoist Komünist Partisi'' (MKP) (Maoist Communist Party)
*
''TKP/ML - KONFERANS'' (Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist–Leninist)
*
''Marxsist Leninist Komünist Parti'' (MLKP) (Marxist Leninist Communist Party)
*
''Türkiye Devrimci Komünist Partisi'' (Revolutionary Communist Party of Turkey)
*
PKK/KONGRA-GEL (Kurdistan Workers Party)
*
''Kürdistan Devrim Partisi'' (PŞK) (Revolutionary Party of Kurdistan)
*
''Kürdistan Demokrat Partisi/Bakur'' (PDK/Bakur) (Democrat Party of Kurdistan/North)
*
Turkish Hizbullah (Hezbollah)
*
''Hilafet Devleti'' (HD) (The Caliphate State) (also known as ''Kaplancılar'')
*
''İslami Büyük Doğu Akıncılar Cephesi'' (İBDA/C) (Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front)
*
''Tevhid-Selam'' (''Kudüs Ordusu'') (The Army of Jerusalem)
*
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir (Arabicحزب التحرير (Translation: Party of Liberation) is an international, political organization which describes its ideology as Islam, and its aim the re-establishment of the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) to resume Isl ...
- Party of Liberation
''Teyrêbazên Azadiya Kurdistan'' (TAK), that is Kurdistan Freedom Hawks in Kurdish, is not on the list despite being designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States,
EU and the UK. However US designation of TAK as a terrorist organisation has taken place in January 2008. It is not clear whether or not TAK carries out militant activities only or both militant and political activities.
Inactive illegal parties
According to H. A. Özhan there are eight important organisations that are illegal political parties in the history of modern Turkey.
[Özhan, H. A. 1998. "Osmanlı ve Cumhuriyet Tarihi Boyunca Siyasi Partilerimiz ". ''Yeni Türkiye'' 23. A summary is available from the WWW: http://www.hacialiozhan.com/arastirma6.html.] Only TKP/ML from his list is still active. The other seven are as follows:
*
''Türkiye İhtilalci İşçi Köylü Partisi'' (Revolutionary Workers' and Peasants' Party of Turkey)
*
''Türkiye Halk Kurtuluş Ordusu'' (People's Liberation Army of Turkey)
*
''Türkiye Halk Kurtuluş Partisi-Cephesi'' (People's Liberation Party-Front of Turkey)
*
''Türkiye Komünist Emek Partisi'' (Communist Labor Party of Turkey)
*
''Türkiye Komünist Partisi/Birlik'' (Communist Party of Turkey/Union)
Other organisations that can be categorized as illegal political parties in Turkey include the following:
*
Islamic Party of Kurdistan
Islamic Party of Kurdistan ( ku, Partiya Îslamiya Kurdistan) is a Kurdish (Sunni) Islamist organisation established in 1979 and led-by Muhammad Salih Mustafa. Other prominent names of the organisation include Hamit Turgut (deceased), Osman Caner ...
*
Kurdish Islamic Movement
See also
*
List of political parties in Turkey
*
Communist Party of Turkey (disambiguation)
Communist Party of Turkey or Turkish Communist Party may refer to:
* Communist Party (Turkey, 2014), 2014–2017
* Communist Party of Turkey (modern), founded as the Socialist Power Party in 1993
* Communist Party of Turkey (historical), 1920– ...
, for other groups using similar names
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Illegal Political Parties In Turkey
Illegal
Political parties, illegal
Terrorism in Turkey
Turkish criminal law
Organizations designated as terrorist by Turkey