Sawt Falasteen - Turkey riot police use tear gas to take opposition party HQ

Party members had blocked the building's entrances, defying the court order issued Thursday as part of an official probe against the Republican People's Party (CHP), before officers broke in to remove the group's leader.

A prominent rights NGO, Human Rights Watch, on Saturday warned that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government was undermining Turkish democracy with "abusive tactics" against the CHP.

Last year, Turkish authorities jailed Erdogan's main political rival, Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who was the CHP's candidate for the presidential election due in 2028.

The court order on Thursday cancelled the 2023 victory in party elections of CHP head Ozgur Ozel and named its former chair Kemal Kilicdaroglu -- a lacklustre figure who chalked up a string of electoral defeats -- as interim leader.

"The Republican People's Party will from now be on the streets or in the squares," Ozel said as he was forced out of the building.

"We will march towards the seat of power," he vowed as he set off for parliament surrounded by supporters.

Kilicdaroglu's backers had tried to push their way in, before police received orders to step in and take the building.

Last year, similar scenes took place in Istanbul, when the courts named an administrator to take charge of the regional CHP offices.

Human Rights Watch called the court order "the latest deeply damaging blow to the rule of law, democracy and human rights" in Turkey.

Q.Najjar--SF-PST