Turkey removes elected pro-Kurdish mayors of Diyarbakir, Mardin and Van
DIYARBAKIR-AMED, Turkey Kurdistan,— The Turkish government removed three elected Kurdish mayors from office on Monday over alleged links to Kurdish PKK militants as Ankara deepened its crackdown on the opposition.
The mayors of Diyarbakir [Amed], Mardin and Van provinces in the Kurdish eastern Turkey — all members of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) elected in March — were suspended over alleged ties to the Turkish outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
A simultaneous crackdown across 29 provinces also saw hundreds arrested, in a sign that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has no desire to ease off its confrontational policies despite recent electoral setbacks.
The ministry said the suspended mayors had active cases against them for “spreading propaganda” or being a member of a terrorist organisation.
The charges included attending funerals and visiting graves of “terrorists”, renaming streets and parks after imprisoned PKK members, and offering jobs to militants’ relatives.
Last week the Turkish government has suspended pro-Kurdish mayors for Turkey’s Çald?ran and Edremit districts over the PKK links.
Erdogan has repeatedly claimed the HDP has ties to the PKK, which has fought a bloody insurgency against the Turkish state for much of the past 35 years. The HDP denies the accusations and says it is being targeted because of its opposition to the government.
The interior ministry said the mayors’ roles would be taken over by their provincial governors, who are appointed by the central government.
Diyarbakir mayor Selcuk Mizrakli told reporters outside the municipality building that the move “disregards the will of the people”.
In 2016, Turkey has detained two Kurdish mayors of Diyarbakir, Gultan Kisanak and Firat Anli, accusing them of “terrorist” activities linked to the PKK. The government appointed a local Ankara district administrator to take over Kisanak’s duties. In February 2019 Gultan Kisanak was sentenced to over 14 years in prison for links to the PKK and Sebahat Tuncel, who had also served in parliament, was jailed for 15 years.
‘Vile coup’
The cases against Mizrakli and Van mayor Bedia Ozgokce Ertan date back to their time as members of parliament.
The HDP denies any links to the PKK but has tried to broker peace talks between the insurgents and the government.
Hundreds of its members and around 40 of its mayors are currently in detention.
The former head of the party, Selahattin Demirtas, has been in prison since November 2016 — a case that has been criticised by the European Court of Human Rights.
The government launched a crackdown on opposition politicians as well as the public sector, media and civil society following the July 2016 failed coup.
Although the coup was not directly linked to the Kurdish issue, the crackdown saw 95 of 102 pro-Kurdish mayors removed from their posts and replaced with central government appointees.
HDP lawmaker Garo Paylan said Monday that all parties and the public must oppose this “vile coup”.
“Remaining silent will mean Ankara, Istanbul next,” he tweeted, referring to the fact that the ruling party lost control of Turkey’s two biggest cities this year.
More than 140,000 people were sacked or suspended from the civil service or public institutions after the 2016 failed overthrow of Erdogan.
The majority of those sacked including teachers are accused of links to Gulen but several thousand are suspected of Kurdish militant links.
Thousands of people, including Kurdish politicians, academics and journalists, were arrested and sentenced over links to PKK.
In April, Turkish electoral authorities annulled elections in five districts and towns after ruling that individuals sacked by decree during the two-year state of emergency could not take up their posts.
Hundreds detained
Turkish police also carried out raids across 29 provinces on Monday, including Diyarbakir, Mardin and Van, detaining 418 suspects over alleged PKK ties, the interior ministry said.
In Diyarbakir, the municipality building was cordoned off by police, an AFP correspondent said, with employees being searched by officers as they entered.
The sacked mayors all won with large majorities in the March elections.
Mizrakli won in Diyarbakir with 63 percent of the vote, Turk won Mardin with 56 percent, and Ertan took Van with 54 percent.
The HDP said in a statement that the decision was a “clearly hostile move” against the Kurds and called for solidarity between all “democratic forces”.
There was also criticism from the new Istanbul mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), who was forced to re-run his own campaign this year after being controversially stripped of his initial victory.
“Ignoring the will of the people is unacceptable,” Imamoglu wrote on Twitter.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 79-million population. More than 40,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels, have been killed in the conflict.
A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974 and currently serving a life sentence in Turkey, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.
Read more about Turkey’s policy against Kurds
Copyright © 2019, respective author or news agency, Ekurd.net | AFP
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