Like many opponents, the government accuses them of terrorism. Three mayors from the People’s Party for Equality and Democracy (DEM, ex-HDP), Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party, have been removed from their positions, the Turkish Interior Ministry announced on Monday, November 4.
The mayors of the large cities of Mardin and Batman, and the town of Halfeti, all three located in the predominantly Kurdish southeast of the country, have been replaced by state-appointed governors, the ministry said in a press release. release.
The 82-year-old mayor of Mardin, Ahmet Türk, a popular figure in the Kurdish movement, had already been removed from office and imprisoned for several months during previous terms, with the Turkish government accusing him of having links to Kurdistan Workers’ Party fighters. . (PKK), an armed group considered terrorist by Ankara and its Western allies, which has led a guerrilla war against the Turkish state since 1984.
“Never give up. We will not back down in the fight for democracy, peace and freedom. We will not allow the will of the people to be usurped. Let this be known! »wrote on Monday morning in the X Mr. Türk, prosecuted for “membership in an armed terrorist organization”. The DEM party described these dismissals “coup d’état”denouncing in a press release “a major attack on the right of the Kurdish people to vote and be elected”.
Layoffs are becoming rarer
Dozens of elected mayors in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast had been removed from office and replaced by government-appointed administrators starting in 2016. However, such dismissals had become rarer in recent years.
However, the DEM mayor of Hakkari, a city in the southeastern corner of Turkey, was removed from office in June before being sentenced to 19 and a half years in prison for “terrorism”. Clashes had broken out in the city.
The former co-chairman of the HDP (now DEM), Selahattin Demirtas, imprisoned since 2016, was sentenced three weeks earlier to 42 years in prison, in particular for undermining the unity of the State.
Türk and the other two pro-Kurdish mayors were elected during local elections in March, which culminated in a large victory for the opposition to the detriment of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamoconservative Justice and Development Party (AKP). .
The opposition mobilizes
These dismissals come a few days after the arrest for alleged links with the PKK of Ahmet Özler, Istanbul district mayor of the Social Democratic Republican People’s Party (CHP), the main Turkish opposition party. The latter mobilized on Thursday to denounce the arrest and replacement of this elected official accused of terrorism, reproaching the authorities “pick a fight” despite the hand extended to the PKK. The CHP and DEM met with their followers to denounce “unfounded arrest” by Mr. Özler.
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Elected on March 31, Ahmet Özer, a renowned academic and close to Ekrem Imamoglu, is accused of being “member of the armed terrorist organization PKK”according to the Ministry of the Interior, which confirmed the “temporary dismissal” of the councillor. The authorities suspended him from his duties and appointed an official, deputy to the governor of Istanbul, as deputy mayor.
However, President Erdogan stated on Wednesday that he wanted “reach out to the Kurdish brothers”. The head of state and his main ally, Devlet Bahçeli, have been hinting for two weeks at the possibility of an early release of the historic leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, detained on an island off the coast of Istanbul since 1999.
Meanwhile, the PKK claimed responsibility for the October 23 attack near Ankara, which left five dead and 22 wounded, stating, however, that it was a “long planned action” and not linked to the recent statements of the head of state and his far-right ally.
