Armed attack on HDP office in southern Turkey

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Unknown perpetrators carried out an armed attack on the Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP) Erdemli district office in Mersin, southern Turkey in the early hours of today (March 27).

The assailants fired at the party's sign board with a shotgun, Mesopotamia Agency (MA) reported.

Gendarmerie officers to the scene of the incident in the morning, after party members who opened the office in the morning noticed the attack.

HDP Erdemli District Co-Chair Ramazan Sesigüzel and Mersin Provincial Co-Chair Hoşyar Sarıyıldız made statements in front of the office, where members of the party, Human Rights Association (İHD) and Freedom for Lawyers Association gathered to denounce the attack.

"We are not afraid of these attacks. These bullets are not only fired at our party but also at Turkey's democracy," Sesigüzel said, recalling that their office was also attacked in 2016.

Sarıyıldız said the purpose of the recent attacks on the HDP was to "intimidate us."

"We know that the perpetrators of this incident will tobe concealed. But we know the power who instigated this. These are the fascist AKP-MHP governments," he remarked.

This was the fifth attack on the party's offices throughout the country since last June, when a party worker named Deniz Poyraz was shot dead by an ultranationalist assailant in an attack on the HDP's provincial office in İzmir, western Turkey. The most recent attack was perpetrated last month in the southern province of Adana.

The HDP has been frequently targeted in such attacks since mid-2015 when the government suspended what was called the "resolution process" to the Kurdish issue.

(RT/VK)