Babacan: Detentions of HDP politicians not legally explainable

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Democracy and Progress (DEVA) Party Chair Ali Babacan called Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Mithat Sancar to express his support in the wake of the mass detention of HDP politicians.

The operation was "not legally explainable" in terms of timing and alleged reasons, Babacan told Sancar, according to the HDP's website. It was an urgent need to make Turkey compliant with the rule of law and principles of democracy and justice, he added.

Sancar said in the phone call that they found it encouraging that the opposition was aware of what the government aimed with the detentions and showing solidarity with them.

Babacan, who served as the minister of economy, deputy prime minister and the minister of foreign affairs in the Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments, resigned from the party last year and founded the DEVA Party in March.

On Friday (September 25), 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.

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 protests

Before 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 ruing 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.
After the HDP made a call to take to the streets against a possible massacre in Kobani, thousands of people protested in Kurdish-majority provinces as well as Ankara and İstanbul. While left parties also supported these protests, deaths also occurred with the onset of police violence. Street conflicts ensued. 42 people lost their lives from October 6 to 12, 2014.

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.

(EKN/VK)