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Maria Margaronis visits Istanbul's neighbourhood of Tarlabasi. It used to be a Greek and Armenian community, but now many of its residents are impoverished Kurds, or refugees. There are elections in Turkey on Sunday, and in Tarlabasi hopes are high for the Kurdish HDP party. Locals are in celebratory and proud mood as they think the HDP may take the ten-percent-of-the-vote hurdle and make it into parliament for the first time. That would enable it to help block President Erdogan's plans to change the constitution to give himself more powers, and to turn Turkey into a more authoritarian Islamic state.

Photo of Kurdish people in Tarlabasi neighbourhood by Mustafa Ozer/AFP/Getty Images.