Spots from our Co-Chairs Figen Yüksekdag’s speech on Hayat TV- Ne Yapmalı Nasıl Yapmalı programme on July 25:
We had no qualms about approving the document signed by all 4 parties against the coup. Our position against the coup is clear irrespective of the disagreements we have with other political parties. We defend the representation at the Parliament even under circumstances when that Parliament has been paralyzed; we will even defend that Parliament from which we are being tried to be expelled.
The dominant mindset, which seeks to resolve the Kurdish issue not through politics but war, has laid the groundwork for the coup, and now, to dispel the threat of another coup, the democracy issue must be resolved urgently. Whether the Gülen clique, or Ergenekon, or the AKP, their only concern is to take over the State controlled mechanism of coercion.
Erdoğan is increasing polarization by pushing away one of the political parties in Parliament. I believe this polarization is in essence a polarization between democracy and authoritarian politics. We were either to have a democratic solution, or authoritarianism was to flourish.
We made a call to the President, we stated that dialogue must be developed to breast the coup threat. The issue is not one of going to Erdogan’s palace or not. The address for dialogue is the Parliament. The institution of politics has been transferred to the Palace which laid the groundwork for the coup. They bypassed Parliament, now they are trying to curry favor with them by gathering party leaders at the Palace.
'We view the rally organized by CHP as a positive step'
We did not take part in CHP's anti-coup rally because AKP stated that it would participate. However, we view the rally organized by CHP as a positive step. It is very important for everyone to defend the areas of freedom in the street.
We saw that, among the groups that took to the streets against the military coup, there were some who had the capacity to carry out a coup within a coup. If democracy is not secured for everyone, these groups will develop into another coup force. There is absolutely no guarantee that these groups that have taken to the streets will not turn into the militia of a civil war. However, it is also wrong to describe everyone who took to the streets as ISIS-supporters.
You call upon the people to take to the streets, but you do not want the people to take part in the country's government. To eliminate the circumstances for any coup, the powers to govern must be dispensed to the people. As if the monopoly over the state mechanism was not strong enough, they now want to monopolize it even further. However, what must be done is to dispense it more to the people. Brother-in-laws and uncle-in-laws are in charge of the state mechanism. They kept repeating the slogan 'A single State!', and finally they have managed to dilapidate the state mechanism.
"We are against torture -regardless of who is tortured"
If you do not confront the torture carried out on soldiers, on generals, this means that you are trying to normalize torture. The only statement the government should have made was, "Yes, there was torture, but we will not allow it to happen again". We are against torture -regardless of who it is committed against and why. An anti-coup policy that does not uphold human rights is not genuine.
Whether part of the coup or not, thousands of people have been detained, or dismissed from their jobs. A massive atmosphere of hatred is being created.
On death penalty
The debate on capital punishment (initiated by the AKP) shows that we have come to the final limit. If such a debate can be made, it means that the political government has not learned from its experiences. A debate to bring back capital punishment is a declaration of impotence. They believe they can resolve the problem only by killing people.
What is important for us is not whether Gülen is brought back to Turkey or not, but to eliminate the circumstances under which coupists like Gülen can flourish.
They have secured all powers through the State of Emergency. They may not use them today, but they may tomorrow. Do they expect us to say, "Thank you, how nice of you," just because they haven’t made full use of State of Emergency powers?
They have submitted the army to authority civilian politics, and in the meantime, they are politicizing the police force. Neither the army nor the police force can be defined or used as a point of origin of politics.
If HDP were in power, it would not take decisions against the coup through institutions established by the coup. We would, first and foremost, abolish the National Security Council [MGK] and the Council of Higher Education [YÖK] and replace them with the democratic will of the people. If these circumstances were to be created, a coup would not find any ground to take shape in the first place. The most effective measure against coups is to place the people at the centre of politics. But AKP says, "The people should be in the streets, and they should protect me, and only me".
We have never given up, and we will never give up on our goal of unity for democracy. If we had succeeded in forming a powerful bloc before the coup, we could have defended democracy against the coup attempt in more powerfully. Our task begins now.
In the coming period, we will have a more visible presence in the streets against the coup and the dictatorship. The rally we held in Istanbul was part of a series of rallies we will hold. We call upon all our peoples who are being tried to be forced out of the sphere of politics to stand side by side at these rallies.
25 July 2016