Originally published in Turkish on Internethaber.com. A PiK translation.

The CHP member of parliament for Dersim, Huseyin Aygun, was released on the evening of 14th August. He was arrested two days before near the district of Ovacik by HPG guerilla forces. After his release he was reunited with his family, before he stepped in front of the cameras and represented his experiences from the previous 48 hours.

Aygun explained, the PKK kidnapped him for propaganda reasons. After his arrest, Bahoz Erdal had communicated with the guerilla force from Dersim. He had made it clear that they should pay attention for there not to be as much as a hair out of place on Aygun.

The force demanded from the CHP MP that he be politically independent. Aygun explained to them that such a decision could not be made under those conditions.

Aygun’s explanation to the press went as follows:

“My two day adventure in the mountains has come to an end today. The organisation disclosed that these actions were carried out for political propaganda purposes. They said, through these actions they wanted to appeal for peace and for a ceasefire. They demanded that I stand more strongly in favour of a ceasefire in parliament. All parties must work more strongly towards this. I explained to them that it is against the will of Dersim for an unarmed person to be captured in the mountains. I also explained that I was proud to be a CHP MP for Dersim. I became aware that the members of this force, who were all between 18 and 25, actually wanted to return home. There was no threat against me at all. They demanded only that the CHP makes more efforts to stem the blood that keeps spilling.

“The force who took me knew me. They exercised no violence at all on me. They never drew a weapon on me. We walked for 6 to 7 hours. To be honest, I had missed the mountains in Dersim. But nobody should go walking in the mountains at the present time.

I think that the criticism from the alevitist organisations, the CHP and the people of Dersim all contributed to my release within such a short space of time. I was released, because of this criticism, within 48 hours. They carried out these actions in order to communicate a message of peace and demand a ceasefire from Ankara. When we woke up in the morning, Bahoz Erdal got in touch with the force to ask whether the reports were true about these actions. He then demanded that my safety be secured and that I was to be released. From then on the safety precautions were to be made the highest priority, and the order was given that I should not have as much as a hair out of place.

“They declared their actions a success and said goodbye to me. They hugged and kissed me. They told me I should not forget my brothers and sisters in the mountains, and I promised them that I would work towards peace.”