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Turkey
DEM Party co-Chair Tuncer Bakirhan speaking during a protests in Hakkari's Yuksekova district on June 7, 2024. Photo: Screengrab/DEM Party on X
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Four days after the ousting of a pro-Kurdish mayor for his alleged links with Kurdish rebels, and the appointment of a state-linked trustee, hundreds of protesters on Friday swarmed the streets of Hakkari’s (Colemerg) Yuksekova (Gever) district in southeast Turkey to protest the decision.
Mehmet Siddik Akis, who became the mayor of Hakkari after winning the March 31 municipal polls on the ticket of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), was detained by the Turkish security forces late Sunday for his alleged affiliation with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). He was removed from his position, being replaced with a state-linked trustee (administrative).
In his first trial on Wednesday, a court in Hakkari sentenced him to 19 years and six months imprisonment for “leading an armed terrorist organization.” The trial was based on a lawsuit against him and several other people who were accused of carrying out violent activities on behalf of the PKK between 2009 and 2013, reported the state-owned Anadolu Agency (AA).
Despite a ten-day ban on holding protests, demonstrations, and public gatherings across the Hakkari province, DEM Party supporters and officials in Yuksekova poured into the streets for the fourth day to protest the decision.
“Colemerg showed once more that the Kurdish people no longer want trustees,” said DEM Party co-chair Tuncer Bakirhan in a speech.
“We will not accept this [appointment of trustees]. The Kurds will not accept this … the peoples of Turkey will not accept this,” he added, noting that it was for the first time in the country’s history that people from all political backgrounds voiced their displeasure against the decision.
Hours following the dismissal of Akis, Turkish politicians protested the decision.
“We reject the operation conducted on the Hakkari Municipality in the early hours of the morning, resulting in the detention of the mayor and the appointment of a trustee,” the leader of the opposition’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) said on X on Monday.
“What has happened is a disregard for the will of the Hakkari people, expressed just 2 months ago. The appointment of the trustee must be revoked,” he added.
Akis received the highest number of votes during March 31’s municipal mayoral elections in Hakkari, obtaining around 49 percent of the votes. He shared the mayoral position with fellow DEM Party member Viyan Tekce.
The removal of Kurdish mayors and their replacement with trustees is not something new in Turkey. Dozens of Kurdish mayors, affiliated with other pro-Kurdish parties, have been dismissed and replaced with trustees for terror-related charges since 2016, with many of them being sentenced to jail.
Yuksekova was among the districts that previously had its mayor removed and replaced by a trustee.
“The people of Gever will not allow a trustee to be appointed in their municipality again … a trustee cannot come to Gever, we will not let it happen,” Sores Diri, co-mayor of Yuksekova, told Rudaw when asked whether there was a danger of appointing a trustee in the district again.
Thousands of Kurdish politicians and supporters of pro-Kurdish parties, mainly the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which has been rebranded as DEM Party, have been jailed in the last decade for PKK-linked charges. A large number of them remain behind bars.
Last month, a Turkish court concluded a ten-year-old case against dozens of Kurdish politicians for their alleged involvement in deadly protests in 2014, including Selahattin Demirtas, former co-chair of the HDP, who has been jailed since 2016. Demirtas was handed 42 years imprisonment in what is known as the Kobane case. The case was named after the Kurdish city of Kobane in northern Syria, which came under the Islamic State (ISIS) attack in 2014. The demonstrations were in solidarity with Kobane.
Days after the last local elections, Abdullah Zeydan, the elected mayor of the Kurdish city of Van, had his win in the vote revoked by a court acting on a last-minute request by the justice ministry, and the Van branch of the election board handed the win to Abdulahat Arvas, candidate of the AKP.
Following widespread protests across the Kurdish provinces, the decision was overturned, and Zeydan received his mandate to take up his role as the mayor of Van.
Sevket Herki contributed to this report from Yuksekova
Updated at 1:00 pm
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