Police detained 22 suspects as part of an investigation into the PKK/KCK terrorist group’s women’s branch in Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakır province.

The KCK serves as an umbrella body of the PKK terrorist group and its Syrian and Iranian offshoots, the YPG and PJAK, in addition to various armed, youth and women’s organizations.

The Ankara Prosecutor’s Office launched a probe on 33 suspects after determining that they had been holding meetings and staging marches to attract recruits to the PKK terrorist group and engaging in political and ideological propaganda for the PKK’s women’s branch, the Free Women’s Movement (TJA).

Police confiscated digital materials and documents in the operation.

Two of the suspects had already spent time in prison for other crimes, while police are still searching for nine other suspects, Demirören News Agency (DHA) reported.

A large number of the PKK’s activities were conducted under supposedly legal structures, according to a previous investigation, which revealed that the TJA was organized directly within the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) women’s assembly.

The HDP has drawn the ire of authorities for consistently transferring taxpayer money and funds to the PKK, a globally recognized terrorist group. HDP mayors and local officials have been found to misuse funds in support of the PKK and provide local municipal jobs for the terrorist group’s sympathizers.

HDP mayors have also long been accused of undermining municipal services, allowing the PKK to dig trenches in the streets and launch attacks on police and soldiers when the terrorist group adopted an urban warfare strategy in July 2015, thus ending a two-year reconciliation period. HDP municipalities and their staff were also found to be actively participating in terrorist attacks launched after July 2015.