Hundreds of activists celebrated Turkey’s Peace Day yesterday in Istanbul’s Kadikoy district despite the governor’s office ban.
Throughout the day, scores of police officers and TOMAs were deployed around the area. Around 4pm local time, representatives from People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and major worker and profession unions including TMMOB, TTB, KESK and DİSK as well as political parties assembled in the asian part of Istanbul.
“Monolithic and racist policies in the Middle East”
Speaking on behalf of Peace Day Committee, Deniz Mardin reminded that ISIS-stricken Ezidi people from Sinjar were in danger of genocide, especially Ezidi women suffering the most terrible means of violence.
Mardin accused the AKP government of attempting to destroy the living hub created in Rojava and resuming the monolithic and racist policies in the Middle East.
“Syrian refugees in Turkey are also subjected to racist attacks. We must raise the resistance from Sinjar to Rojava, from Rojava to Gaza.”
“The world remains silent against Ezidis”
Feleknaz Uca, former EU parliamentarian, underscored the fact that more than 500,000 Ezidis became refugees within the latest crisis and the world remained silent against Ezidis.
“We are not only faced to a tragedy of atrocities. Women commit suicide so that they won’t fall in the hands of ISIS. Whatever happened in Dersim in 1938, it is happening again in Sinjar."
Throughout the demonstration, protestors chanted the slogan “Murdered ISIS, Perpetrator AKP” and held pictures of Ezidi refugees and PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan.
“Peace is our greatest assurance”
HDP deputies Ertuğrul Kürkçü, Sebahat Tuncel and Levent Tüzel also attended the demonstration. Sebahat Tuncel said the following regarding the governor’s office ban of the demonstration:
“PM Davutoğlu is the architect of Turkey’s Middle East policies. As long as these policies will resume, the bloodshed in the Middle East will resume. We urge the AKP government to give up on these policies. As of today, we have transitioned to the negotiation stage [in the peace process with Kurds]. Let’s become the actors in this process. Peace is our greatest assurance.” (NV/ÇT/BM)
* Click here to read the article in Turkish.
