SOME 127 activists were detained across Turkey yesterday, according to reports.

The arrests, which come less than three weeks before the country’s national elections, appeared to target mainly Kurdish politicians, journalists, lawyers and artists.

Police carried out their “counter-terrorism operation” at addresses in 21 provinces in an investigation led by prosecutors in Diyarbakir, the de facto capital of Turkey’s Kurdish population. 

According to the government, the operation targeted the Kurdistan Workers Party. 

It is believed that the timing of the operation, ahead of the May 14 parliamentary and presidential elections, was also aimed at the socialist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), currently Turkey’s second-largest opposition party that will fight the election as part of a green-left coalition.

Emma Sinclair-Webb of Human Rights Watch described the operation as “clearly an abuse of powers and an intimidation tactic before the election.” 

The HDP said the “detention frenzy” was designed to “steal the ballot box and the will of the people.”

The HDP has had thousands of its members, lawyers and politicians imprisoned over the last eight years and faces pressure in an ongoing legal case in which the government is seeking to close down the party.