Citizens and politicians protest seizure of Batman municipality, Turkish Kurdistan (Bakur), March 23, 2020. Photo: ANF
DIYARBAKIR-AMED, Turkey Kurdistan,— Eight more mayors from Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party were dismissed on Monday on suspicion of links with Kurdish militants and were replaced by government-appointed trustees, the interior ministry said.
The mayor of Batman city and fellow mayors from Ergani, Egil, Lice and Silvan in Diyarbakir province in Turkish Kurdistan (Bakur), the Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey, were removed from their posts, the ministry said in a statement.
Another three mayors were suspended from districts in the eastern and southeastern provinces of Bitlis, Igdir and Siirt, it added.
The mayors are all suspected of being members of an armed terror group, according to the ministry.
Earlier on Monday, the Peoples’ Democratic Party ((Halklar?n Demokratik Partisi HDP) said five mayors replaced had been detained, as well as a sixth who had previously been removed.
Turkey accuses the HDP — the country’s third-largest party — of links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The HDP denies such links.
The government has cracked down on the HDP, with a total of 40 mayors replaced since March 2019 local elections.
One of Turkey’s best known Kurdish 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.
In February 2020, the Human Rights Watch slammed Turkey for removing elected Kurdish mayors.
The PKK is considered to be a terror group by Ankara, the United States and the European Union. In 2008 EU court ruling overturned a decision to place the Kurdish rebel group PKK and its political wing on the European Union’s terror list. The United States has designated the PKK a terrorist organization since 1997.
However, Russia, Switzerland, India, China and the United Nations do not list the PKK as a terrorist organization.
In January 2020, The Court of Cassation of Belgium ratified the lower court’s judgement and ruled that Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK is not a terrorist organization.
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