* Photo: HDP

Click to read the article in Turkish

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Spokesperson Ebru Günay addressed the reporters at a press conference in the HDP Central Office. Günay also talked about the calls for "an urgent snap election" in Turkey raised by main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and İYİ Party Chair Meral Akşener yesterday (November 17).

"The country has turned into a place on fire. It is a fact that the government cannot govern the country," said Günay and urged President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his cabinet "to admit that they cannot govern the country and they won't be able to do so in the current situation and to initiate the electoral process."

"It is an obligation," Ebru Günay emphasized.

Referring to the increasing prices and economic hardships, along with unemployment, faced by citizens, she said, "The situation that the country has found itself in is obvious. There is a reality of Turkey where the economic crisis has been aggravated more and more, where people are getting poorer, women are massacred, young people and children are deprived of a future."

Arguing that "the government did this harm preferably", Ebru Günay noted, "But society doesn't accept this any longer. The government should admit this state of mismanagement and initiate an electoral process. We said this over and over again before."

Closure case and Kobanî trial

Further in her speech, HDP's Günay also addressed the closure case against the party pending before the Constitutional Court and the Kobanî trial, where the defendants and lawyers have recently decided to not attend the hearings in protest against the failure to hold a fair trial.

She noted that "the policies of plot targeting the party have been pursued from different fronts simultaneously." Defining the "closure case, which is based on the Kobanî Plot Case" as yet another "case of shame", Günay said, "These cases are not cases of law."

Explaining what she meant, she said, "Why am I saying this? The Counterterrorism [Department]'s annotation forgotten in the file is full of open orders to prosecutor's offices and the judiciary. In that annotation, recommendations are made to the judiciary, ways and methods are suggested... It openly shows how the case of plot was a preparation to close our party." She asked,  "If this is not a plot, what is it?"

'Attacks on Kurdish culture, language intensified'

Günay also raised concerns that "the attacks targeting the Kurdish culture, Kurdish language and Kurdish art have recently intensified again."

"These attacks targeting the language, culture and art of Kurdish people are not new, of course. They are a continuation of the attacks of denial, ban and destruction which have been systematically continuing for over a century," Ebru Günay protested further.

Noting that "those who are guided by the practices of denial in the past are recklessly trying to destroy the values of Kurdish people and to assimilate them", Günay said, "Not Kurdish and the culture of Kurdish people, but the ones who attack them will be a thing of the past."

'Making amends' and 'facing the past'

Concluding her remarks, Günay referred to the recent discussion of "making amends" with different sections of the society, as was brought up by main opposition CHP Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.

Welcoming these debates and discussions, HDP Spokesperson Ebru Günay said, "We would rather call the term brought up by Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu 'facing' [the past]. Making amends with the mistakes and errors of the past requires facing it in the real sense of the term."

She added, "In that sense, it is important for establishing social peace. To do this, the mistakes should be admitted and sincere self-criticism should be the case. And the most important of all is that society should be assured and promised that those mistakes won't be repeated."

Recalling that the HDP has long been recommending the establishment of a Commission for Researching the Truth and Facing the Past, Günay reiterated the party's recommendation one more time. (AS/SD)