Pro-Kurdish HDP Leader Kicked Out of Turkish Parliament

Erdogan, who became the first Turkish politician to sanction direct peace talks with Ocalan, is credited with granting Turkey’s estimated 16 million Kurds greater rights than any of his predecessors combined. But these rights are being steadily rolled back in ways that appear to criminalize any overt expressions of Kurdishness, just as happened during decades of military tutelage that Erdogan helped crush. A sad example played out in the western province of Aydin last week: A group of Kurdish high school students were taken in and grilled by police after fellow students complained that they had been listening to Kurdish music and dancing Kurdish folk dances. The local prosecutor who ordered their interrogation deemed their materials terrorist propaganda. The students were nonetheless set free for lack of evidence, the Turkish-language Hurriyet Daily News reported.

Pressure on the Kurds may well scare many in the battle-scarred southeast of the country away from the ballot box on April 16.

Erdogan and other AKP leaders have openly labeled potential naysayers as “terrorists” and “traitors” and are touting the referendum as a test of patriotism. “The government is bent on keeping the Kurds at home because their votes could well tip the balance,” claimed Sezgin Tanrikulu, a member of parliament for the main opposition Republican People’s Party. Tanrikulu, who is also a globally acclaimed human rights lawyer, told Al-Monitor, “The rights violations that we are currently witnessing in Turkey are on an unparalleled scale.”

Tanrikulu had just petitioned the parliament to investigate allegations of extrajudicial killings and torture in the village of Kurukoy near the Syrian border. A curfew was slapped on the village on February 11 as part of an operation to hunt down PKK militants said to be in the area. All access to Kurukoy has been blocked, leaving residents trapped inside with dwindling food supplies and allegedly subjected to sustained abuse by security forces.

Feleknas Uca, an HDP member of parliament who was prevented from entering the village over the weekend, asked, “What is the state seeking to conceal in Kurukoy?” Uca told the independent ArtiGercek news portal that 65 families live in the village and that there were unconfirmed reports that at least 40 villagers had been detained so far. She also brought up claims that two teenage girls were being held hostage by the security forces. Graphic images said to be shot in Kurukoy of the bloodied corpses of men, presumably PKK militants, circulated via social media accounts that were swiftly suspended.

The governorate of Mardin province, under whose jurisdiction Korukoy falls, dismissed the allegations of ill-treament. Contrary to media reports, the operations against the PKK were carried out “in keeping with the rules of the state of law and the protection of civilian lives and property is a priority, ” the governor’s office said in a statement.