ANF (Firat News Agency) reports that an attack was staged to the progressive, left, pro-Kurdish, pro-democracy HDP party’s co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş while he was in his official vehicle. Mr. Demirtaş, who was not hurt in the incident, or the others riding in the car did not notice the time a bullet hit the back window. […]
ANF (Firat News Agency) reports that an attack was staged to the progressive, left, pro-Kurdish, pro-democracy HDP party’s co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş while he was in his official vehicle.
Mr. Demirtaş, who was not hurt in the incident, or the others riding in the car did not notice the time a bullet hit the back window. The window is bullet proof and did not break. However, when the group reached their destination the HDP co-chair’s security crew noticed the bullet which had struck the car at a level intented to hit the passanger in the back seat at the head.
The vehicle has been taken to Turkish Security offices for inspection. No bullet casing has been found yet.
HDP has been at the center of right wing, government and ISIS attacks as well as the attacks from the Kemalist nationalists. In the last elections in November HDP breached the 10% threshold to gain nearly 80 seats in the National Grand Assembly. This was seen as a game changer for the ruling AKP-JDP (Justice Development) Party since the election results showed the gain of HDP was at the cost of JDP.
Nearly all HDP mayors or co-mayors in the South East where HDP enjoys huge constituents from the Kurdish population has been arrested by the JDP government. The Turkish government does not allow the Kurdish mayors to exercise democracy and citizen participation. HDP has been the leading organization promoting more democracy. During the last elections more than 120 HDP offices were attacked, ransacked, and destroyed. The headquarters of HDP was set on fire by nationalist mobs while the police only watched without stopping the Kemalists who hate Kurds because they have not been assimilated into the Turkish identity and hang on to their more than 2000 year old Kurdish identity, language, culture and traditions. This is unacceptable for the Turkish nationalists. Kemalists claim that the modern Turkey is based on one nation, one leader, one flag, one language, one religion, one country. None of this fits into the modern world where people can live under democracy with rights to their language and culture. Kurds have been denied their cultural rights for most of Modern Turkey’s history, including using their language and even unable to give their children Kurdish names. Turkish nationalists don’t have any tolerance for any diversity of ideas, culture, language, religion or identity. This is not surprising when one sees that this nationalism was imported from mostly Germany in the early 1920’s and 1930’s.
Sendika.Org News (Mehmet Bayram)
