ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has called on other Turkish opposition parties and the international community to “lose no time” in stopping the Turkish government’s “coup” on the party, referring to the deposition and detention of the party’s mayors and other officials. HDP officials and members have faced Turkish government crackdown in the last three years, following a failed coup attempt allegedly orchestrated by Fethullah Gulen - a former ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. HDP condemnation of the putsch did not save it from Ankara’s clampdown. Twenty-four HDP mayors elected in March 31 local elections have been removed from their posts due to their alleged links to Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Fourteen more mayors have been detained on similar charges. Six mayor-elects were prevented from even taking office, as they had previously been removed from office during post-coup attempt states of emergency. Turkish officials and nationalists claim that the HDP is the political wing of the PKK – an armed political party struggling for the political and cultural rights of Kurds in Turkey. Ankara considers the PKK as a terrorist organization. Hisyar Ozsoy, deputy co-chair of the HDP for foreign affairs warned on Monday that a replication of the crackdown on his party elsewhere is “highly probable.” “It is imperative to note that this discriminatory hostility against the popular Kurdish will involves, and yet seeks to hide under a Turkish nationalist rhetoric of "terrorism," a more profound and comprehensive affront to whatever has remained of the principles of democratic representation and the rule of law in Mr Erdogan’s Turkey,” he said. “Unless the non-HDP opposition takes an immediate and univocal position against this unconstitutional coup against the popular will, it is highly probable that the municipalities held by other opposition parties will soon be targeted in the same manner –such as the CHP-run Ankara and İstanbul metropolitan municipalities,” he added, referring to the losses suffered by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in the March elections. Ozsoy called on “larger” Turkish opposition parties – namely the CHP - and the “democratic” international community “to lose no time in acting against this coup and fulfilling their part in leading Turkey back into the path of parliamentary and local democracy and the rule of law.” Some CHP officials were also detained during the post-2016 raids against government dissidents, as well as Turkish journalists, academics and lawyers. The CHP is the largest opposition party, followed by the HDP and IYI Party. The ultra-nationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) also considers itself to be an opposition party, but is in alliance with the AKP and is consulted in key issues by its ally. The crackdown against the HDP has been internationally condemned. “Moves by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government against democratically elected officials and other peaceful government critics violate Turkey’s obligations under international and regional human rights law,” read a report by Human Rights Watch on October 11. When the first unseating of mayors took place on August 19, Hugh Williamson, HRW director in Europe and Central Asia described it as the process of “smearing the mayors by alleging vague links with terrorism to deprive the Kurdish population of their chosen representatives endangers everyone in Turkey.”
