‘Let’s stand up against racist attacks, build peace together’

Click to read the article in Turkish

The Unity for Democracy (DİB) platform has released a written statement about the recent racist attacks in Turkey.

"The attacks are heartbreaking for us, they make us more and more ashamed in the name of humanity; however, more importantly, we are getting more and more enraged at the political atmosphere that has been legitimizing these attacks," the platform has underlined in its statement.

According to the DİB, the coalition of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the allying Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has made the military coup on September 12, 1980 "enter a period of renaissance" and the line of tension that the country has been going through due to this coalition "has paved the way for these attacks."

'Intolerance of the Interior Minister'

The rest of the statement briefly reads as follows:

"The climate of impunity where the murderers and the ones who joined the lynch are walking free, but the ones who were attacked and aggrieved are almost treated as criminals fuels these racist attacks even more.

"The gangs released to the streets by amnesties that politicians and journalists could not benefit from hasten the streets' surrender to violence.

"While the Minister of Interior should display the will to stop racist attacks and take the necessary measures, he keeps on displaying intolerance in the face of few judgements handed down by the higher judicial bodies to protect the right of democratic opposition in the country.

'They pave the way for crimes against humanity'

"Talking over and over again about survival for the last 5 years, the government says that it cannot even ensure the conditions where a Constitutional Court President can cycle to work and thereby confesses how insecure a country Turkey has turned into with the current policy of tension.

"Considering that unemployment hits new records and economic problems create the psychological conditions for violence and bursts of rage, the irresponsible attitudes in this process, the ones who try to make the gravity of the situation invisible and those who have made a principle out of impunity to racist attacks pave the way for new crimes against humanity.

'End the climate of impunity'

"Based on our fundamental principles of equality of all human beings in the world and the sacredness of the right to life, we, as the Unity for Democracy, demand that such attacks that undermine our already damaged social peace be condemned in the collective social consciousness, these attacks be not covered up and the climate of impunity be ended by ensuring that the perpetrators are definitely called to account.

"The struggle to build a democratic and just system in this law can only be based on the principle of equality of everyone.

'We will wake up from this nightmare together'

"Eymen and Özkan as well as the attacked agricultural workers are our brothers and sisters. The knife, bullet and slaps targeting them, in fact, target us all, they target our fraternity and humanity.

"We call on all democracy forces to raise a collective struggle that assures people and follows the judicial process of perpetrators. We will wake up from this nightmare together by raising our social peace!"

What happened?

An armed attack targeted Kurdish workers in Turkey's Aegean province of Afyon on September 13. While construction worker Özkan T. lost his life in the incident, Fırat T. and Emrah Ö. were wounded.

The workers reportedly left the district of Erciş in Turkey's eastern province of Van to work in Afyon. As reported by Mezopotamya Agency (MA), the incident happened at around 7.30 p.m. An unidentified person opened fire on brothers doing construction business.

His shots claimed the life of 25-year-old worker Özkan T. and wounded workers Fırat T. and Emrah Ö.

The attack in Sakarya

A racist attack was carried out on Kurdish agricultural workers in Sakarya on September 4, 2020. The workers went there from the southeastern province of Mardin. After the Mezopotamya Agency (MA) reported on the incident, the attack sparked a public outrage.

In a statement, the Governor's Office of Sakarya denied the attack and alleged that the footage in question was from a former attack in Kocaeli.

The Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of Kocaeli issued a detention warrant for two people over this racist attack. Security forces started working to catch the suspects, who were then taken into custody. However, the suspects were released after they deposed. (TP/SD)