How Turkey’s Military Adventures Decrease Freedom at Home

As an Armenian from Turkey and a descendant of genocide survivors, I know very well the meaning of this message. In 2007, Hrant Dink, a celebrated and outspoken Armenian journalist from Istanbul, who edited the Agos newspaper, was assassinated by a Turkish nationalist in a similar period of heightened nationalism. Mr. Dink once described Turkey’s Armenian minority as “living with the trepidations of a dove.”

The darkness that engulfed Turkey seems to widen every day. In the past few weeks, dozens of my friends from the H.D.P., including Ayhan Bilgen, the elected mayor of Kars, on the border with Armenia, have been arrested on trumped-up terrorism charges, ostensibly for organizing street protests in 2014 across the country. The protests were a response to the government’s nonchalance in the face of the siege of the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani by the Islamic State.

Seven H.D.P. parliamentarians, including me, are being accused of “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order” in an indictment, and a prosecutor is preparing to ask the Parliament to remove our immunity, which will then allow the police to arrest us. This was already done to Selahattin Demirtas, a former co-chairman of the H.D.P., and thousands of other officials who are in jail. It’s not hard to see that the political intention here is to paralyze our party — the third largest in Turkey — and weaken the opposition.

Despite the recent threats, I was encouraged by thousands of people calling, writing and gathering signatures expressing their support for me. The other day, someone cleaning the streets shouted at me, “My deputy, if they take you away one day and you cannot see us, know that we are here.” And I do.

You may wonder why we continue to struggle for democracy in this country. Things were not always so dark in Turkey. A decade ago, Turkey was a relatively promising democracy, on path for European Union membership and calling for regional peace. It coined the “zero problems with neighbors” policy, and at one point, we were even close to normalization of relations with Armenia.

We founded the H.D.P. in that hopeful period in 2012. Our mission was to support the peace process with the Kurds and to introduce a pluralist voice in our country’s stifling political scene. I entered the Parliament in 2015, exactly a century after my great-grandfather was killed in the Armenian genocide. My goal was to help build a democracy strong enough, and vast enough, so that Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Alevis, minorities and women would live without any fear, as equal citizens.

I yearned and worked for Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. When I met Armenians during my travels abroad, I argued that this struggle for the heart and soul of Turkey was important because only a democratic Turkey could face its past — and only then would our collective healing start.

But Turkey took a path toward authoritarianism after 2015, and our basic civil rights are on hold today. President Erdogan, once an advocate of European Union-led reforms and a peace process with the Kurds, over the past decade has established a one-man regime, moved away from democracy and entered a coalition with hard-right Turkish nationalists. Greater militarism has followed.

Militant nationalism and authoritarianism can neither solve our domestic problems nor help the region. A better choice for my country will always be to seek regional peace and cultivate better ties with our neighbors. Turkey must encourage Armenia and Azerbaijan to return to peace talks and facilitate a lasting settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.

On Saturday, Russia, which has a defense agreement with Armenia and good relations with Azerbaijan, brokered a cease-fire between the two countries. This highlighted Russia’s role in the region and has left Turkey out of the diplomatic game. If President Erdogan wants to be relevant, he should stop inflaming tensions in the Caucuses and support the cease-fire between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

But I am not naïve, and I know that only a democratic Turkey can help stabilize its region and act as a responsible member of the international community. That is why I will not remain silent in the face of threats and will keep on fighting for democracy here and peace abroad.

(Garo Paylan is a member of the Turkish Parliament from the People’s Democratic Party. This commentary was published in the New York Times on October 15.)