‘Removal and Arrest of Democratically Elected Kurdish Mayors Violates Voters’ Rights’

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Releasing a written statement today (February 7), Human Rights Watch (HRW) has indicated that the "removal and arrest of democratically elected Kurdish mayors across southeastern Turkey violates voters' rights."

23 mayors are currently behind bars for allegedly having committed crimes as per the Anti-Terror Law.

One of these mayors, Adnan Selçuk Mızraklı, the elected mayor of Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality, will have his second hearing on February 10, 2020 on charge of "membership of a terrorist organization."

The HRW has referred to Mızraklı's judicial process in following words: "Although the prosecutor has issued a legal opinion requesting Mızraklı's conviction, the evidence in an indictment against him does not support the charge that he was involved with terrorism or committed crimes."

HDP won 65 municipalities, 32 appointed a trustee

"The removal of the mayors and disempowerment of local councils has effectively canceled the results of the March 31 local elections in the most populous cities of the southeast and eastern provinces", the HRW statement has read. Other highlights from the statement are as follows:

"The Turkish government is intensifying its attack on the opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) by removing the mayors and preventing the functioning of elected local councils across Turkey's southeast.

"The actions against the mayors began in August with the removal of the prominent HDP mayors in the three biggest cities of southeast and eastern Turkey, prompting protests against the government's actions in Diyarbakır.

"Thirty-two HDP mayors in the region have been stripped of their office and replaced with Ankara-appointed provincial and district governor 'trustees.' After their appointment, trustees did not convene the local councils – effectively neutering their decision-making role in local government. The HDP won 65 municipalities in the region in the March local election.

"This is the second time the authorities have systematically suspended local democracy for Kurdish voters in that region. Under the state of emergency that followed the July 2016 attempted coup, the Erdoğan government introduced amendments to the Municipalities Law, and took direct control of 94 HDP municipalities and removed mayors and councils who had won at the polls in 2014 local elections."

'Government's preferred way to wipe out opposition'

Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at the HRW, has also said, "Removing, detaining, and putting on trial local Kurdish politicians as armed militants with no compelling evidence of criminal activity seems to be the Turkish government's preferred way to wipe out political opposition.

"These cases are not linked to any legitimate counterterrorism effort but trample the rights of the mayors and the 1.8 million voters who elected them.

"Parliament should repeal the changes it made to the Municipalities Law under the state of emergency, which are being used to justify the arbitrary removal and detention of mayors." (AS/SD)