Turkey
A police vehicle responding to protests in Turkey's Kurdish city of Van on April 2, 2024. Photo: AA
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey’s interior ministry announced on Wednesday it had detained around 90 people across the country on grounds of being affiliated to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), following the crackdown on protests in support of the elected Van mayor whose candidacy was invalidated by a court ruling the previous day.
Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced that 89 people were arrested for “demonstrating without permission, shouting praises and supportive slogans for the separatist terrorist organization [PKK] which attacked our security forces with stones, and showed resistance despite the warnings by not dispersing.”
Most of the detainees were from the Kurdish cities of Van, Hakkari, Siirt, Batman, and Sirnak, and Turkey’s west coast’s Izmir.
DEM Party announced on Tuesday that five minutes before the end of working hours on Friday, the Turkish justice ministry objected to Van’s court’s decision to reinstate party’s Van candidate mayor Abdullah Zeydan’s suspended rights, with the chief prosecutor’s office appealing to the court to revoke the decision on the same day, rendering his candidacy invalid.
Protests erupted hours after the Van branch of the country’s electoral body (YSK) on Tuesday ruled that Zeydan was not eligible to take part in the elections, handing the mayoralty of the Kurdish city to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) candidate Abdulahat Arvas, who garnered the second-highest number of votes.
The Van governorate responded by banning demonstrations, protests, and public gatherings for 15 days.
“We reject the decision of the Van Provincial Election Board to award the certificate of election to the AKP mayoral candidate for the metropolitan municipality of Van, which our party won by a large margin,” the DEM Party stated on X.
“We are witnessing absolute lawlessness in this situation… a trap has been set against the people’s will. We stand by the will of our people against this ambush until the end,” Zeydan told journalists during demonstrations in Van.
“It is not about Zeydan or [Neslihan] Sedal [his co-mayor], rather it is a trap set against the Kurdish people and the people of Van,” he added.
The decision to prevent Zeydan from taking up his position as mayor of Van drew the ire of politicians and civil rights activists across Turkey, including the opposition’s Republican People’s Party (CHP), which won Sunday’s local elections.
CHP Leader Ozgur Ozel slammed the decision in a video message on X, labeling it a “disgrace” and an “ambush against the will” of the people of Van.
“If the people of Van elect someone as their mayor by voting for him three times more [than for his rival], then it is our duty to be respectful of this,” Ozel said.
The CHP leader noted that appointing the AKP candidate as mayor contradicts what President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday night, following the vote, when he stated that the party respects the outcomes of the elections.
Ozel later announced on X that he had sent a delegation of four parliament members to Van to “show solidarity and follow the events on the spot”.
The Istanbul Bar Association also slammed the decision saying it showed that the country’s “political power ignores the will of the people.”
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