‘Hostility towards Kurds amid pandemic’ report by the HDP
Click to read the article in Turkish
Ümit Dede, the Vice Chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) responsible for the Law and Human Rights Commission, and HDP Ankara MP Filiz Kerestecioğlu shared the party's "Hostility Towards the Kurds during pandemic report" in a press conference yesterday (July 15).
CLICK - The full report (in Turkish)
According to the report, as of March 11, 2020, when Turkey officially confirmed the first case of novel coronavirus (COVID-19), to June 30, trustees were appointed to 14 HDP municipalities in Kurdish-majority provinces and four municipal council members were removed from office.
The report has also shown that HDP's co-mayors were arrested based on unfounded allegations and municipal council members were prevented from attending council meetings without any court rulings.
After a trustee was appointed to the Metropolitan Municipality of Mardin in place of HDP's Ahmet Türk, the price of water per cubic meter has been increased from 2 Turkish Lira (TRY) to 5,80 TRY.
According to the report, "the curfews imposed as part of pandemic measures were used as an excuse for violence of police and neighborhood guards."
"In several cities, citizens who went to buy bread, took out their trash or were sitting on their gardens were insulted, forced to lie on the ground and handcuffed behind their backs or drawn a gun by police, neighborhood guards or even the guards of a sub-governor," the report has read.
Other highlights from the report are as follows:
'444 citizens unlawfully detained, 93 arrested'
"In the district of Seyhan in Adana, Ali El Hemdan, a citizen of Syria, was shot to death by a police officers in the days of outbreak.
"In Diyarbakır, the images of torture inflicted on M.E.C. for killing a police officer were reported, thereby torturing the family.
"Rojbin Çetin, a member of our Democratic Local Administrations Board, was tortured for 3 hours. She was unable to walk due to the attack of dogs. Held in custody for 11 days, Çetin's torture was prolonged.
"As far as we could document in our study, in these three and a half months, when the outbreak was the most intense, at least 84 people were subjected to torture and ill treatment.
"Targeting the dissidents, primarily the HDP politicians, the government unlawfully took 444 people into custody such as women's rights activists, journalists, healthcare workers protesting their bad working conditions and those who do not think like the government.
"93 of the detained have been arrested and sent to prison. Only yesterday (July 14), 24 women working on women's rights in different institutions under the umbrella of the Free Women's Movement (TJA) in Diyarbakır were taken into custody and they are still detained.
"Similarly, in Antep, 33 people, including our provincial and district co-chairs, have been taken into custody.
"At least 13 graves were damaged for multiple times."
Parliament
According to the HDP's report covering the period from March 11 to June 30, 2020, 93 summaries of proceedings were sent to the Parliament's Constitution/Justice Joint Commission. 84 of these 93 summaries of proceedings were prepared against the HDP MPs.
The report has also shown that in the first week after Parliament was opened again, HDP's lawmakers Musa Farisoğulları and Leyla Güven and main opposition Republican People's Party's (CHP) Enis Berberoğlu were stripped of MP status. While they were all arrested shortly after this decision, Farisoğulları is still behind bars. (EMK/SD)