Detentions and Arrests Aimed at Eliminating Democratic Politics in Turkey

As the government continues its hostile attitude towards our party HDP and its constituents, each day arrives with a new wave of detentions and arrests. On October 11th, in an extensive police operation targeting HDP and DBP, our sister party, around 60 party executives were detained in Diyarbakır and Bitlis. On the same day, the police went to the residence of HDP’s Batman MP Mehmet Ali Aslan, asking about his whereabouts. 

Only this week 181 people were detained in Diyarbakir, Bitlis, Hakkari, Siirt and Van. The detainees include 7 (4 HDP and 3 DBP) provincial co-chairs, 58 district co-chairs and 3 co-mayors. Neither the lawyers are allowed to see the detained nor are their families provided with any information.

These revenge seeking operations that keep shrinking the field of democratic politics destroy all possibilities of dialogue. The nationalist and militarist climate thus generated keeps coming up with new moves aimed at further suffocating all oppositional and democratic forces in Turkey.

HDP reiterates its conviction that the destruction of means of democratic politics has never helped solving any problems; on the contrary, it has exacerbated them. It is evident that amidst these policies that distance Turkey from international law and conventions the country keeps sinking into ever-deeper lawlessness and graver human rights violations.

We take up the police operations on October 11th as signs of imminent and more reckless repressive policies on the part of the government. We would like to highlight that these operations came after President Erdoğan’s declaration about a change of strategy on the one hand, and explicit death threats against or our co-chairs and MPs in the social media, on the other.

We remain committed to our ideals of freedom and democracy and will not be intimidated by these policies of sheer force and repression. We will do our best to mobilize and resist against this onslaught and prevent chaos and dictatorship from prevailing in Turkey.