Our Parliamentary Group Deputy Chair Ahmet Yıldırım and Urfa MP Ibrahim Ayhan have been stripped of their status unlawfully after the memorandum read in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Filiz Kerestecioğlu, our other Parliamentary Group Deputy who spoke on behalf of the HDP MPs before leaving the parliamentary session said following:
We will not wait for the decisions about our MPs to be read. This is something recurring and basically a blow to the will of the people.
Our friend, our group deputy Ahmet Yıldırım, who is sitting next to me right now, he just spoke, used words only. And his words were used as the justification for the removal of his immunity. If a member of parliament can legally be stripped of his status, merely because he uttered the words, "A poor excuse for a sultan!" then this, in fact, only goes to underline the impotence of the person in question. And our deputy, İbrahim Ayhan, is losing his seat because of social media post about a person who was fighting against ISIS. It is a shame!
In this country we have seen February 28th, it is no different, now there is a very grave civilian coup. By ignoring the people’s will and stripping their deputies, the bonds of this parliament with the deputies are being broken off. But the deputies’ bonds with their people cannot be cut in any way.
This parliament has no other function than notarizing. We well know that you are doing all these acts because you are aware that you will never be able to stay in power if there is a fair election if there is a true and transparent media. The peoples of this country are aware of this too.
Mr. Ahmet Yıldırım and Mr. İbrahim Ayhan will always be the deputies of the peoples. This parliament is now a place that we are in just because we have promised our people that “we will stay until the last one of us remains”.