Kurdish HDP party holds its 4th Congress, elects leaders in Turkish capital

2020-02-23 00:00:00 - From: Iraq News

Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar elected as HDP’s new co-chairs

ANKARA,— The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) 4th Ordinary Congress opened in Ankara Sports Hall. HDP deputy co-chair Azad Bar?? delivered the opening speech before the election of the congress presidency.

“We are carrying out a very important meeting today. – he said – In this important junction of history, we send our greetings from Serhat to Amed {Diyarbakir], from the Black Sea to Europe, Australia and all of Kurdistan. We salute all our comrades once more. We promise you that HDP will win, peoples will win.”

Then the Congress presidency was elected. Deputies Tülay Hatimo?ullar? and Mehmet Rü?tü Tiryaki were elected as co-chairs of the presidency.

Deputy Tülay Hatimo?ullar? said: “We are holding our congress at a time when freedom in our country is bleeding. Poverty deepens. Violence against women is increasing. The mentality that deal with violence when it comes to the Kurdish question, also deals with violence in the Syrian war and the peoples. The remedy is a combination of democracy forces. It is the synergy it creates.”

Hatimo?ullar? added: “Greetings to those who resist in Imral?, Kandira and Edirne and in all the jails of this country.”

Mehmet Tiryaki stated that this Congress will be a “congress of hope and unity”.

Delegates and guests held a minute silence for those who lost their lives in the struggle for freedom and democracy. The congress continues with the speeches by the HDP co-chairs.

HDP elects new co-chairs: Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar

The 4th Ordinary Congress of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) was held in Ankara on Sunday to elect the co-chairs and central party officials with almost a hundred international participants and thousands of guests.

The participation of foreign delegation was the broadest in the history of HDP. Delegates from France, Germany, Australia, Tunisia, Palestine, Jordan, Morocco, Cyprus, Sweden, West Bank, Galicia, Lebanon, Greece, Basque, Egypt, Italy, Catalonia, Denmark, Norway, England, Scotland, Portugal, Finland, Switzerland, Spain and Armenia attended the congress, alongside more than 30 representatives of political parties and women’s organizations from the Middle East. The congress also hosted Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe United Left Group Chairman Tiny Kox, Palestinian People’s Liberation Front member Leila Khalid, Swedish Social Democratic Party Member of Parliament Kadir Kas?rga, and President of the European Free Alliance Lorena Lopez de Lacalle as guest speakers.

Following elections held at the congress, Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar were elected unanimously as the party’s new co-chairs along with the Party Assembly.

HDP Buldan: We will win, democracy will win!

HDP co-chair Pervin Buldan greeted the Congress in Kurdish and Turkish and said: “Even though their bodies are in prisons, Selahattin Demirta?, Figen Yüksekda?, Sebahat Tuncel, Abdullah Zeydan, Selma Irmak, ?dris Baluken, Aysel Tu?luk, Gülser Y?ld?r?m, are with us.

I send my heartfelt greetings and love to Ça?lar Demirel, Gültan K??anak, Nurhayat Altun, Selma Irmak, Selçuk M?zrakl?, Bekir Kaya and all our comrades, whose names I cannot mention here.

We send our greetings and respect to the great veteran of the HDP thought, Mr. Abdullah Öcalan.”

Buldan added: “We are celebrating our congress as the Middle East and Turkey are undergoing great changes. Of course, we have not come easy to these days. We arrived here through resistance. Thousands of our friends were taken hostage, but we became millions. They could not wipe out the HDP. We did not let them destroy us. The HDP is such a strong structure with its components, alliances, and the Democratic Congress of the Peoples it originates from, as well as deep-rooted social organizations such as the Democratic Society Congress, that this castle could not be destroyed, we did not allow it to fall. They wanted to impose a single voice. We broke this. We made a lot of voices.”

HDP Temelli: Let’s establish the alliance for democracy!

Speaking at the HDP 4th Ordinary Congress, co-chair Sezai Temelli invited everyone to join the alliance for democracy.

“We must strengthen our struggle for radical democracy on the path of absolute democracy in order to create the Democratic Republic,” he said.

Temelli said: “It is a historical responsibility to free our people from AKP-MHP fascism and to establish our democratic force by implementing the Third Way. We will continue our struggle for a democratic government in the new era to meet with the people of Turkey. Let’s get together in a democracy alliance to bring democracy and peace to the Middle East.

We invite everyone to join the Democracy Alliance. This struggle is getting stronger. We must bring together different struggles in a common language of struggle against fascism.”

Turkey has stepped up its crackdown on Kurdish politicians in since 2016. Trustees have been appointed to dozens of municipalities in the country’s Kurdish Southeast (Turkey Kurdistan), while hundreds of local Kurdish politicians have been arrested on terror charges.

The government accuses the HDP of having links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK, a charge that the HDP denies. Thousands of officials from the HDP have been detained since 2015.

Turkey has removed dozen of elected Kurdish mayors over alleged PKK ties. Twenty-three mayors are in pretrial detention on allegations that they committed terrorist offenses.

In February 2020, Human Rights Watch has slammed Turkey for removing elected Kurdish mayors.

The former co-leaders of the HDP have both been jailed since 2016 on terrorism charges, with several other prominent members accused of supporting terrorism over what the government says are links to the PKK.

One of Turkey’s best known politicians, Selahattin Demirtas has been in jail for more than three years on several charges including alleged links to PKK. He could be sentenced to 142 years in jail if found guilty in the main case.

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.

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