Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and the Palace of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pour more fuel on the fire, detaining the co-mayors of Amed (Diyarbakır), Gültan Kışanak and Fırat Anlı. The mayors’ party, the HDP, has called for protests everywhere starting at 11.00 on 26 October

Turkish police have detained the co-mayors of Amed (Diyabakır) Metropolitan Municipality, Gültan Kışanak and Fırat Anlı, on “terrorism” charges in the latest move to silence oppositional voices in the country.

Kışanak was detained at the local airport while Anlı was detained at his address late on 25 October. In the wake of the detentions, police set up barricades to prevent local citizens from entering the municipal hall in the northern Kurdish city.

The Diyarbakır Chief Prosecutor’s Office accused Kışanak and Anlı of conducting propaganda on behalf of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Following their detentions, Turkish authorities conducted searches on the municipal building from 21.00 until 6.00 on 26 October before beginning searches at the municipal-controlled water authority.

The mayors’ party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), has called for resistance and street protests starting at 11.00 on 26 October in response to the latest AKP attacks, particularly on the Kurdish Freedom Movement.

“The knife has cut to the bone,” HDP Organizational Deputy Co-Chair Nadir Yıldırım told Stêrk TV, calling for HDP supporters to react on the streets.

The HDP has attracted the wrath of the HDP and Erdoğan’s Palace, both due to its perceived links with the PKK and its role in the Kurdish Freedom Movement and because the party has been the biggest thorn in the side of Erdoğan’s ambitions to impose a presidential system on the country in which he would become an executive president with few checks and balances.

Since the HDP passed the 10 percent electoral barrier on 7 June 2015, the AKP has stepped up operations in the Kurdish areas of Turkey while stripping HDP MPs of their immunity from prosecution and detaining hundreds of party functionaries around the country.

The government has also begun appointing trustees in place of detained, popularly elected politicians throughout Northern Kurdistan.

Kışanak’s detention came the same day as she appeared in a parliamentary commission into the 15 July coup, which has been blamed on the Gülen movement, during which she noted the past collaboration between the AKP and the movement.

“It’s difficult to understand those who have been together for 40 years being so intolerant to a 40-minute meeting,” she said in the commission in reference to a meeting she once had at the municipal hall with a journalist who worked for a Gülenist newspaper.

She also said the investigation into the Gülen movement should start with the probes into the Kurdistan Communities Operation (KCK), in which thousands of Kurdish politicians were rounded up starting in 2009, allegedly by Gülenist prosecutors.

“The government didn’t listen to our words; on the contrary, it declared that it would defend the operations,” she said.

‘You will be tried’

Speaking outside the municipal hall, Democratic Regions Party (DBP) Co-Chair Sebahat Tuncel issued a warning for the authorities.

“We came with the will of the people, what right have you come with? You’re going to be sent packing from here. Just as the [Gülenists] are being tried, you’re going to be tried too. You will all be called to account,” she said.

“Get out of here. This is the people’s municipality. We were chosen by the people, who the heck are you? The people recognize us, not you,” she said.

Sendika.Org