Opposition parties, rights defenders denounce 'politically motivated' detention of HDP members

HDP members in Kars read out a statement against detentions (Photo: AA)

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Opposition parties and rights defenders have criticized the government for yesterday's (September 25) mass detention of Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) members as part of an investigation into 2014 protests in Kurdish-majority provinces, where dozens of people were killed.

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu reportedly called HDP Co-Chair Mithat Sancar for support, telling him that they believed the detentions were politically motivated.

Sancar said in the phone call that the crackdown targeted the entire opposition through the HDP and added that "the attacks could only be stopped by a joint struggle and a joint democratic stance."

The operations showed the need for a joint struggle once again, he said.

Detention warrants were issued against 82 people in seven provinces over the protests for Kobani, a Kurdish town in Syria that was about to be captured by ISIS at the time.

Forty-six people died in the three-day protests, for which several senior figures of the HDP, including Selahattin Demirtaş, the party's co-chair at the time, have been blamed by the government.

No senior figure from the HDP has received a sentence because of the Kobani incidents. Kars Mayor Ayhan Bilgen and former MPs Altan Tan and Sırrı Süreyya Önder, who were also detained yesterday, stood trial and acquitted.

Reactions from opposition parties

The Future (Gelecek) Party and the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), two offshoot parties of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), also criticized the detentions.

Selim Timurci, the spokesperson of the Future Party, which is led by Ahmet Davutoğlu, who was the prime minister at the time of the protests, said on Twitter that if there were new findings that led to the detentions, they should be announced to remove the suspicion that the detentions were politically motivated.

Demirtaş had previously said that he had a phone call with then PM Davutoğlu one day before the incidents began. "I told him that 'People took to the streets, people are going out everywhere, the situation is very critical and please, let's intervene tonight, let's provide the necessary support because ISIS captures the border crossing. Mr. Prime Minister can't deny this but he had an attitude far from understanding the situation, stalling and unserious."

DEVA Party MP Mustafa Yeneroğlu said it would be absurd to think that the detentions six years after the incidents took place because of legal reasons.

"The political mentality instrumentalizing the judiciary makes terrorist organizations happy as it tramples the sense of justice," he said on Twitter.

Birol Aydın, the spokesperson of the Saadet (Felicity) Party, which also shared the same Islamic roots with the AKP, said that "The confidence in justice continues to shake," questioning why the politicians were detained six years after the incidents.

Union for Democracy: The opposition won't be intimidated

The Union for Democracy (DİB) released a written statement, saying that the government was trying to cover up the loss of political support with the detentions by "attacking the opposition."

Noting that one of its members, Perihan Koca, was also among the detainees, the DİB said, "The October 2014 demonstrations were organized in solidarity with the people of Kobane in Northern Syria, which at that time came under the siege of ISIS."

"However, provocations by the government led to events which were then used to criminalize and attack the HDP and the opposition. Meanwhile, the demand for a parliamentary inquiry into the Kobane events was blocked by the majority party in the government," it added.

"The one-man regime is trying to stay in power by attacking the social opposition while trying to cover up the poverty, unemployment and insecurity engendered by its untenable policies in the domain of education, the economy, health and foreign relations.

"The attacks on the HDP are aimed at intimidating and suppressing the opposition. It is vitally important for the social opposition to massively confront this attempt by defending democratic rights and freedoms.

"We would like to once more affirm that it is impossible to intimidate the forces for democracy by means of unlawful suppression. The operations must be stopped, the HDP leadership, the UfD coordinator Perihan Koca and all other detainees must be freed immediately."

"The political use of the anti-terror law"

The Human Rights Association (İHD) said in a written statement that the political use of the anti-terror law against the political opposition was "unacceptable."

All those who were detained should be released, it added. İHD Chair Eren Keskin named the crackdown a "political genocide" in a Twitter post.

"Aradan altı yıl geçtikten sonra hukukun siyasallaştırılıp TMK'nın siyasi muhalifler üzerinde amansızca kullanılması kesinlikle kabul edilemez. Kişi güvenliği hakkı ve özgürlüğü hakkı başta Demirtaş ve Yüksekdağ olmak üzere gözaltına alınanlar bakımından açıkça ihlal edilmiştir. Bu soruşturma kapsamında tutuklu olan Demirtaş ve Yüksekdağ ile gözaltına alınanların bir an önce serbest bırakılmasını talep ediyoruz."

(TP/VK)