Photo: Filiz Kerestecioğlu / Twitter
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The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lawmakers protested today's (October 1) opening of the legislative session over the mass detention of its members on September 25.
The fourth session of the 27th term of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) has begun with a ceremony at the general assembly.
HDP Co-Chairs Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar and the party's MPs staged a sit-in protest in the garden of the parliament.
Detention warrants were issued for 82 members of the HDP, including Kars Co-Mayor Ayhan Bilgen and former lawmakers, over the 2014 "Kobani protests" in the Kurdish-majority provinces. A court extended the detention period of 20 members of the party's central executive committee.
Kars Co-Mayor Şevin Alaca and several party members in the province were also detained today.
Making a statement for the press at the parliament, Buldan said, "These operations are not legal but political. It is a political coup operation carried out in accordance with the AKP-MHP government's political agenda.
"We are facing an operation that is the extension of the political coup operation on November 4, 2016, when our co-chairs and lawmaker colleagues were arrested and the trustee coup on November 19, 2019, which disregarded the people's will," she remarked.
After losing municipalities to opposition parties in last year's local elections, the government was "taking the revenge" from the HDP, Buldan added.
"They want to eliminate the democratic political ground, those who do democratic politics and democratic organizations. They are implementing a plan to make democracy collapse," she further noted.
Buldan also recalled Servet Turgut, who died yesterday after being allegedly dropped from a military helicopter, saying, "I denounce those who did this inhuman torture, those who are responsoble for that and those who protect them."
"Of course, they will not be able to cover up this torture. As the HDP, we will make every effort for the perpetrators and those responsible to stand before the court," added Buldan.
Sancar: The operation targets the whole opposition
Co-Chair Mithat Sancar said the operations targeted the demand for democracy in Turkey and the will of the Kurdish people.
"Yes, the operation carried out against us is, above all, an attack to the struggle for democracy and the public opposition. This is why we call this operation a political coup," said Sancar.
"The aim of the political coup operation is to establish the regime they want in a society without an opposition," he said.
"The other target of this operation is the will of the Kurdish people. There is an attempt to attack the will and dignity of the Kurdish people in the person of the HDP.
"The political banishment operation against the political representatives of the Kurdish people through the judiciary is also being deepened by leaving the racist attacks unpunished. It is becoming widespread with the use of the wildest methods of torture. All these are other legs of political banishment.
"Now, the duty of us, the duty of Turkey's democratic powers, the political opposition in Turkey, is to record the government's approaching end in the first election.
"Our call is for all democratic power. Let's grow the struggle together and remind the political opposition of its responsibilities together every time."
What happened?As part of an investigation conducted by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office into the Kobani incidents on October 6-8, 2014, detention warrants were issued against 82 members of the HDP, including 24 former Central Executive Committee members, on September 26. Following these orders for detention, Ayhan Bilgen, Alp Altınörs, Nazmi Gür, Altan Tan, Ayla Akat Aka, Emine Ayna, Sırrı Süreyya Önder, Bircan Yorulmaz, Gülfer Akkaya, Berfin Özgü Köse, Dilek Yağlı, Can Memiş, Günay Kubilay, Bülent Barmaksız, Zeki Çelik, Pervin Oduncu, İsmail Şengün, Ali Ürküt, Cihan Erdal, Emine Beyza Üstün were taken into custody. On the day of the operation, the detainees were taken from other provinces to the Ankara Security Directorate in the capital city. While they were restricted from meeting their attorneys for 24 hours, the HDP politicians started to meet their attorneys as of September 27. While the names of Arife Köse, Yurdusev Özsekmenler, Bayram Yılmaz, Zeynep Karaman were also in the 24-person detention list, they could not be detained as they could not be found in their residences. The Kobani protestsBefore the protests held to support Kobani in northern Syria in 2014, those who were waiting in the district of Suruç, Urfa in southeastern Turkey and wanted to cross the border were intervened with pepper gas and rubber bullets. In the meantime, some pictures allegedly showing ISIS militia crossing the border of Turkey were published. President and ruling AKP Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made statements indicating that they equated PKK with ISIS. While the wounded coming from Kobani were kept waiting on the border, the wounded from ISIS were treated at hospitals. Several news reports were reported in the press, saying "Kobani fell." These news reports were denied every time. According to a report by the Human Rights Association (İHD), 46 people died, 682 people were wounded and 323 people were arrested in the protests held between October 6 and 8, 2014. As reported by the AA, 31 people lost their lives, 221 citizens and 139 police officers were wounded. Conducted by Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor Yüksel Kocaman, the investigation started a year ago. First, the depositions of former jailed HDP Co-Chairs Figen Yüksekdağ and Selahattin Demirtaş were interrogated as part of this investigation. Released in the trial where he had been arrested pending trial, Demirtaş faced another ruling of arrest as part of this "Kobani investigation" on the same day. |
(AS/VK)
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