Please find below 4 documents from the HDP setting out information and reactions to the detention of the Diyarbakir co-majors, the court ruling on Figen Yuksekdag, the state of emergency and the speech by Demirtas on 27th October
1. The court ruling on Figen Yüksekdağ is not lawful but arbitrary and political
Şanlı Urfa 5th High Criminal Court ruled today “to bar HDP co-chair Ms Figen Yüksekdağ from travel abroad by way of judicial control”. This action is entirely arbitrary and in conradiction of legal precedents.
The statement in the ruling which cites the “existence of facts which raise suspicion that the accussed will abscond” is unfounded and deliberate. Ms Yüksekdağ has traveled abroad innumerable times, participated in various meetings, held diplomatic and political talks and has always returned to Turkey.
The statement about “the exitence of a risk that the accused will abscond” is hence, entirely arbitrary and unacceptable. Our lawyers will exercise their right of objection and take the necessary legal actions to lift this ban.
We demand the immediate rescinding of this politically motivated unlawful travel ban ruling concerning our co-chair Ms Figen Yüksekdağ who is currently participating in the work of the Parliament as Van MP and carrying on with her political work in all parts of the country.
People’s Democratic Party
Central Executive Board
29 October 2016
2. A ‘state of obeyers’ is being constructed
On 29 October 2016 the Erdoğan-AKP government issued Decrees No 675-676 with the Power of Law in the framework of the State of Emergency.
Some of the immediate and concrete results of these decrees are as follows:
- 10 thousand 159 teachers, health workers, academicians, ministry employees, public employees including HDP Vice-Co-Chair Sezai Temelli and the groups and deputy advisors working for our Parliamentary group have been unlawfully fired in the absence of a court decision.
- Several news agencies including Dicle News Agency (DİHA) and the world’s only women’s news agency: JİNHA as well as many local papers in Kurdish and Turkish, and magazines have been closed.
- The properties of municipalities whose elected mayors were replaced by state appointed trustees have been confiscated.
- The right to defense has been further restricted in Turkey’s legal system which already is a long way from establishing justice.
- It has been ruled that university rectors will no longer be elected. They are to be appointed by the President.
Once again people are declared guilty in the absence of a court decision. Once again bans confront freedom of press and communication: Kurdish media, newspapers, radios, news agencies and televisions, websites are closed, their properties and machinery are confiscated. They are trying to stifle the voice of the Kurdish people.
The latest Decrees with Power of Law are another step towards establishing a “state of obeyers”, a “one-party-state”. The Erdoğan-AKP government continues to proceed on the path to construct a state structure wherein those who do not declare allegiance to Erdoğan and AKP will not be able have a place.
Under the State of Emergency regime which means nothing but the creation of laws to enable the exercise of exceptionally unlawful acts, the Law, rights and freedom do not exist. Under the State of Emergency regime universal human rights and democratic rights, many articles of the European Human Rights Covenant and United Nations Conventions are being violated every day, every minute.
Erdoğan-AKP government is carrying on with the process of its own coup d’etat. It is using the State of Emergency to move into the “one man rule” it has dubbed “Turkish style Presidential system”. Under the slogan “either presidential system or chaos”, this government using the 15 July coup attempt as a pretext keeps running the country through Decrees with Power of Law and monopolizes all authority in the hands of one man. All those who oppose this government are declared enemies.
We once again say to the Erdoğan-AKP government: We will not bow in to your mentality in spite of all the evil you may do and mobilize. Neither the Kurdish people and political movement nor the peace and democracy forces of Turkey will submit to such unlawfulness and kneel before you.
Saying No to this State of Emergency regime and defending democracy is a civic and human duty for all of us. It is our duty to resist against injustice, unlawfulness and State of Emergency.
Peoples’ Democratic Party
Central Executive Board
30 October 2016
3. Demirtaş: You are to give back the people’s will that you have stolen!
On behalf of my party I thank all of you for supporting the municipality since the first moment this unlawful practice began.
For last two days no internet connection is provided in any Kurdish city. Oppositional TV outlets are seized and confiscated. The journalists who are here with us now may be able to send their reports to their agencies in this hard conditions but prime-time news will probably not cover their reports due to the fear of Erdogan. So what are we going to do? We will visit every house door to door, and tell what is going on. We will meet our peoples eye to eye, in person. They closed our media outlets, but they cannot blindfold us. We will not accept this as if it was an ordinary process.
Yes, no one is free to commit a crime, but a fair trial by an independent court is a must for us to appear before a judge in clear conscience. We are not afraid of standing trial, but jurisdiction is non-existent right now. We will not let the law commission of AKP judge us in court!
No one can criminate our municipalities to support terrorism. If you would like to produce such claims, first take a look at your own municipalities. Look at Istanbul mayor Kadir Topbas, look at Ankara mayor Melih Gökçek. It is not us who gave half of Istanbul and Ankara to Gulenists. There is no terrorist organization here but you! You nurture ISIS, you nurture al-Nusra.
If you can prove that a single dime from our city hall was sent to the Qandil mountain, let alone for Gultan Kısanak and Firat Anli, take us all! But it is not the truth.
We had been calling you (meaning AKP government) for immediate elections. But no more! Had you trust in yourself, we demanded immediate elections, do not assign your trustee mayors, we said. You should have had the courage when we called for the public vote. We do not demand elections now, instead you are to give back the people’s will that you have stolen.
That night Amed city councilors were blocked from the City Hall. Police was conducting a search unattended. This is the violation of law. This was not how you conduct a search in the municipality. No one knows what they were doing or planting in there. This was illegal.
Now their lawyers are forbidden to visit our mayors for 5 days. We have friends in detention for 19 days. They are waiting under detainment without being asked even a single question. Because there is nothing to be questioned. This is the situation.
We are not afraid of being prosecuted, though justice is the least encountered thing in Turkey’s courts. We just don’t want to be prosecuted within a political perspective. If there was justice, we’d be willing to be prosecuted together. If they are going to question you (meaning Erdogan and AKP) about reams of money in shoe boxes, weapons in trucks that sent to Syria, those murdered in the streets, let’s be prosecuted together.
We worked for peace day and night. We said “People do not need to die. They are all children of someone, they are humans. Let’s solve the problems by dialogue, by politics”. Even now, we say let’s have rallies, let’s get results within politics, but you also witness what’s happening. You (meaning the officials) are blocking these options. However, we will insist on politics till the end. A sane government would pave the way for politics. A sane government would pave the way for dialogue, instead of arresting co-mayors to disable guns and violence.
They may make us pay a heavy price, but have faith, this insanity will eventually fail.
From where the world stands, Turkey looks like a country of ISIS, and Erdogan like the Caliphate of ISIS. We are not responsible for this.
They may use state of emergency as a justification. Did you not declare the state of emergency against the state itself? Against the coup-plotters? Take a closer look, there are people here, people! No coup-plotters. Everyone must use their right to peaceful and democratic protest. There should not be any hesitation.
Well excuse us, we may lose our heads but shall not kneel (a traditional way of saying you are ready to pay a price than surrender). Just because he is finger-wagging from the palace, will we submit? No!
Everyone will take streets within their power. Without taking a step back, we will be in the streets until we get results. Never take a step back. However, while doing this, do not allow violence. We don’t need violence. This is as much legitimate as the people taking the streets on July 15 to stand up for their will is legitimate. We will reach our people house by house. We are running a campaign against the state of emergency, against those attacking our will. We will raise our voices wherever we are.
If there is going to be democracy and peace in this country one day, we will be those accomplishing them, and we will prevail by resistance, not by submitting.
October 27, 2016 Diyarbakır
4. Freedom For All Resisting Women In The Name of
AYLA AKAT ATA and GÜLTAN KIŞANAK
The attacks, detentions and arrests towards the people and their representatives as a part of the ongoing state violence in Kurdistan since July 2015 have reached its peak in the last 3 days. Gültan Kışanak, as the first Co-Mayor of Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality and resisted for two years against the tortures in Diyarbakir Prison during the military coup in 1980, was taken into custody on 25th October 2016; the municipality building was blockaded and raided by hundreds of police.
On 26th October 2016, the people who gathered in front of the municipality building to protect their will had been attacked with impunity via water cannons and teargas, and, many people were battered and detained. During this attack, the women who resisted in front line are specifically targeted. As well as many of our women comrades have been detained, co-speaker of KJA, Ayla Akat Ata, has also been battered and detained, and, the advocate and family visit is prohibited for five days. The day after, her house and KJA, the umbrella organization of the Kurdistan women, was raided by the police and all documents, archives and computers were illegally confiscated.
The detention of Gültan Kışanak on the day that she was listened as a witness in the Parliamentry Commission to Investigate the Coup, the batter and detention of Ayla Akat Ata as the co-speaker of KJA and former MP in the Parliament between 2007-2014, and finally the police raid in KJA shows clearly that the government’s main attack is towards the resisting women.
These attacks conducted against the women, who organize themselves on the basis of gender-specific and autonomously, as well as their representatives and their institutions are the continuation of genocide policies against Kurdish people. During the conflictual process for last 15 months, approximately 100 women were killed, while thousands of women were detained and hundreds of them were arrested. Alike, the attack against our co-speaker that is targeted specifically and on purpose is an attack against the organized women in Kürdistan that carry out this struggle.
Began in the dungeons with the slogan of Berxwedan Jîyane – Resistance is Life and organized in all social areas with resistance, the women in Kurdistan continue their struggle under the leadership of KJA. We, the women who are living the “State of Emergency” in every “state” and mainly subjected to the pressure of male-dominated system, know very well that the only way to break this chain passes through the resistance and organize. Against the system which is totally intolerate to any women who resists, seeks for freedom and never obeys, as KJA we call all women comrades to show their democratic reactions on the highest level, being in solidarity with the Kurdish women that raise the struggle with acts and activities, and spread the women struggle to all areas.
JIN, JIYAN, AZADI !
WOMAN, LIFE, FREEDOM!
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