The political genocide operations carried out by the AKP-MHP nationalist alliance to intimidate and suppress our party still continue. Systematic attacks against HDP members, administrators, and those who demand freedom, peace and justice take place almost every day. In a statement released by the Interior Ministry of Turkey, it has been announced that 718 people, including HDP provincial and district chairs, have been detained in “anti-terror operations” carried out in 40 provinces since February 12.
According to the information provided by the HDP’s Commission on Law Affairs and Human Rights, a total of at least 139 HDP members and executives have been detained in several provinces in the mentioned period. Accordingly, the number of detainees in various provinces is as follows: Bursa (6), Van (29), Aydın (13), Diyarbakır (26), Ankara (10), Manisa (7), Mersin (6), Adana (20), İstanbul (22). As usual, the pro-government media put itself in the shoes of the courts and targeted politicians and activists who were detained declaring “terrorists were detained”.
In an effort to to cloak its weaknesses and fears the AKP / MHP ultra-nationalist block resorts to fascist methods, employing policies of intimidation, detentions and attacks against students, journalists, activists, and other institutions and individuals representing democratic politics, particularly HDP politics.
This wave of detentions against our party and democratic institutions has nothing to do with the law. Whenever peace is at stake and the government needs popular nationalist support, it targets the HDP and attacks our members by force. Surely, this ultra-nationalist alliance will lose power and defenders of democracy and peace will prevail and emerging even more powerful from this process will build a peaceful country.
Under conditions where this alliance is getting increasingly desperate due to the political and socio-economic crises exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic, the HDP is ever more committed to its political struggle for a free, democratic, and peaceful future for Turkey.
Feleknas Uca & Hişyar Özsoy
Co-spokespersons of HDP for Foreign Affairs