A mass brawl erupted in the Turkish parliament on Wednesday with rival politicians trading blows in front of the speaker’s lectern.
The fracas began when Ahmet Sik, an MP from the Workers’ Party of Turkiye (TIP), insulted the members of the AK Party headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s president.
His verbal attack, delivered from the speaker’s platform, sparked a furious reaction from a group of AK Party MPs.
They stormed the platform with one MP slapping Mr Sik and forcing him to the floor.
Mr Sik responded by throwing punches at rival lawmakers as a mass brawl broke out involving around 40 MPs.
Bekir Bozdag, the deputy speaker, was forced to suspend the session for 15 minutes while order was restored.
The fight took place during an extraordinary parliamentary session called to discuss the status of Can Atalay, the TIP MP serving an 18-year jail sentence for “aiding an attempt to overthrow” the Turkish government.
TIP is a Left-wing opposition party that strongly supports the rights of Kurdish people, while AK is Turkey’s ruling party, headed by Mr Erdogan.
Mr Atalay, 48, was sentenced in 2022 but was elected an MP for TIP last year while still in jail.
His imprisonment has been described as a “gross injustice” by Amnesty International who have called for his immediate release.
In January 2024, the parliament stripped Mr Atalay of his seat despite a ruling by the country’s Constitutional Court which had blocked the move.
The parliament is normally in summer recess until October 1 but opposition parties forced the extraordinary session to debate Mr Atalay’s status.