While Turkey is being touted as a democracy to the world, internally it falls short on all criteria of a democracy.

Ask what democracy is not to the iron fisted ruling corrupt dictatorship, but to the National Assembly opposition party HDP.

HDP is a progressive, feminist, pro-Kurdish, pro-democracy party in Turkey. Despite all anti-democratic, racist and openly illegal attacks of the ruling AKP party it participated in the June 24, 2018 elections and surprised its opponents when it formed a strong body in the National Assembly.

In order to specifically prevent the pro-Kurdish parties to enter the Assembly, a 10% threshold was erected. Behind this plot was the thought that the Kurdish votes were divided and the latest Kurdish party, HDP, would not be able to conjure enough votes to go over the 10% bar. Previously the ruling AKP had approached the Kurds with promises to grant certain human, social and ethnic rights. Later it became obvious that this “opening” to the Kurds was meant to divide their votes with no intention of granting any of these rights. With this maneuver becoming obvious, Kurds consolidated their support behind the HDP.

HDP is only the latest of the pro-Kurdish parties that came to life only to be either legally shut down or forced to close their doors under unbearable political, criminal, anti-democratic, anti-women, nationalistic pressures and after baseless and made-up charges were hurled at them.

Some consider it a miracle that HDP was able to withstand the attacks and campaigns against them by the entire Turkish State and the Turkish government.

In the June 2018 elections HDP not only went above the erected 10% threshold to be allowed to get into the Assembly, it became the third largest party in it. Its representatives increased from 56 to 67.

This meant HDP also became the key party for any opposition coalition.  However, due to nationalism in other opposition parties against the Kurds, the opposition stays away from this progressive organization.

Indeed, HDP has also changed, opened up, to be precise, from being the party of the Kurds to become the party of Turkey. This means progressives, feminists, socialists, environmentalists found their place in it regardless of their ethnic origin. Truly HDP now represents not only the Kurds but also Turks, Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians and other minorities as well as progressive causes.

In a non-democratic country like Turkey, representing the people, the progressives, feminists and Kurds came with a heavy price.

The “Commission of Justice and Human Rights” committee of the party announced the ways government is trying to shut down the organization.  Yesterday, on the World Human Rights Day, the report published by the committee yesterday sums up the pressures:

• In operations against the party since 2015 the police have detained 15,530 party members.
• 6,000 members were arrested
• 750 party officials and high ranking members were arrested.
• In 2019 alone, 1,674 members detained
• In 2019 alone, more than 200 were arrested
• After the July 15, 2016 where a staged, so-called show-coup against the government was performed, 10,719 party members were detained and 2,251 members arrested.
• In the same period, 89 large city co-presidents and 193 town co-presidents of the party were arrested.
• The arrests are arbitrary and long “trials” are being used as a pressure mechanism.
• The co-presidents of the party, Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ have been arrested in November 4, 2016. These were the elected officials and representatives in the National Assembly. They are still in prison.
• Other 6 high ranking and leading officials are being charged with prison sentences that on the average is around 8-10 years.
• 19 other leader/representatives of the party have been given long prison sentences yet have not been arrested yet.
• More than 50 elected provincial assembly members and 6 co-mayors have been simply removed from their posts with a government decree and no trial.
• As of December 2019, 17 mayor/co-mayor have been arrested
• As of December 2019, 28 provincial governments have been taken over by the central AKP government and AKP loyalists have been appointed as “stewards” to these towns.
• In the latest March 31, 2019, provincial elections 750 party officials working for the election process have been detained and prevented from doing election work.
• 107 of these election workers were arrested.

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