Filiz Buluttekin, the mayor of the Sur district in the southeastern Kurdish province of Diyarbakir (Amed), Turkish Kurdistan (Bakur), August 2019. Photo: Buluttekin’s Twitter
DIYARBAKIR-AMED, Turkey Kurdistan,—Turkish authorities on Friday detained a mayor from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) due to suspected links to Kurdish militants, a security source said, the latest in a crackdown on mayors from the party since elections this year.
President Tayyip Erdogan and his government accuse the HDP of having links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, leading to prosecutions of thousands of its members and some leaders. The HDP denies such links.
Ankara has appointed acting mayors to 31 HDP municipalities in southeastern cities and districts since March elections, according to the HDP, and 24 of the HDP’s co-mayors are currently jailed pending trial.
The HDP governs many cities in the Kurdish region in southeast of Turkey (Bakur) and typically appoints one male and one female co-mayor to promote gender equality.
Filiz Buluttekin, the mayor of the Sur district in the southeastern Kurdish province of Diyarbakir (Amed), was detained on Friday, the security source said. Two other municipal council members were also detained.
The HDP said police had raided Buluttekin’s home early on Friday. Images showed blockades around the Sur municipality building.
State-owned Anadolu agency said investigations were being conducted against Buluttekin on charges of terrorism propaganda, insulting the Turkish people, the government and the parliament.
It said Buluttekin had attended the funerals of PKK militants and joined a press conference regarding the Kurdish leader and PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan, jailed since 1999.
According to Firat New Agency ANF also a co-mayor of Sur district municipality Cemal Ozdemir, were taken into custody following house raids in Diyarbakir on December 20, 2019 over alleged links to PKK.
On December 12, the co-mayor of Mardin’s K?z?ltepe district Nilüfer Elik Y?lmaz, won by the HDP in March 31 elections, was taken into custody and replaced by a government-appointed trustee, ANF reports.
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.
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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