DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (A.W.)—The co-leader of Turkey’s leftist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas, was unharmed after a suspected assassination attempt on Nov. 22. An HDP spokesperson said that the rear window of Demirtas’s bullet-proof car was hit by a bullet on Sunday in Diyarbakir, in an apparent attempt on his life, Reuters reported.
“Everyone should know this attack will not frighten us. Those who frighten us by fear of death, threaten us by death, are mistaken,” Demirtas was quoted as saying after the incident, in a tweet by the HDP.
Meanwhile, HDP’s Armenian Parliamentarian Garo Paylan tweeted: “The bullet was fired against those who continued to insist on saying, ‘we insist on peace.’”
According to authorities in Diyarbakir, there was no trace of gunshot residue detected on Demirtas’s car, reported Turkey’s Daily Sabah. The Diyarbakır governorship launched an investigation into the incident and announced that after a preliminary examination, the damage on the right side of the window was likely caused by a solid object, but not a bullet.
The HDP once again broke the 10-percent threshold needed to claim seats in parliament in the country’s Nov. 1 snap elections, but won 21 fewer seats than it did in the June parliamentary elections. The snap elections were called by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) failed to form a coalition government following the June elections.
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