News & Comment
Turkey’s HDP (Peoples' Democratic Party) Operation

News

After the Turkish parliament lifted their immunity HDP (Peoples' Democratic Party) members were asked to testify in the investigations put against them but they did not go and testify. So last night (04/11/2016) an operation took place. HDP Co-Presidents Selahatin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, and seven parliamentary representatives who were taken under custody were arrested. Two of the representatives are abroad and one is still missing. Including Sırrı Sureyya Önder and three other representatives were let go. (Hurriyet)

Comment

In May 20 the lifting of the immunity bill, constitution change, passed the parliament's General Assembly with 376 votes. President Erdoğan had ratified the constitution change of the Number 6718 law on the parliamentary representatives' immunity in 7th of June 2016. There are 667 law cases put against 138 representatives. 405 of these cases belong to the representatives of HDP. HDP and some CHP (People's Republic Party) representatives went to the Constitutional Court for an annulment of the bill but the Constitutional Court did not accept their application. HDP representatives who were called to testify and did not show up were taken under custody and afterwards Co-Presidents Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ including 7 representatives were arrested. 3 of them were let go with condition of judicial control. 2 of the representatives are abroad and 1 is still missing.

Turkey treats the Kurdish problem like one step forward and step backwards according to the conjuncture. AKP claims today the exact opposite of what they did from 2005 till 2013. Also they are today enemies with whom they befriended in those years. In the last three years; "Gezi Incidents","17-25 December Operations", "6-7 October Kobani Protests", " July 15th Coup Attempt" and dozens of "Bloody Terrorist Attacks" happened in Turkey. This situation broke the political balance and completely changed the pacts in Turkey.

The city wars, PKK started in July of 2015; the declarations of independence, trench battles and with the November 1st elections it became more and more violent. The mission given to PKK in Syria and the support it gets from international powers, turned the south east of Turkey into a war zone. The state understood this as a matter of existence and responded to this by taking harsh security precautions.

On the other hand lifting of the immunities, the trustee practice, the governmental and juridical response to the declaration of the Academicians, the decrees after the 15th of July coup attempt, the closing of newspapers and magazines and the investigations on the intellectuals who supported them, indicates to us that the state has returned to the security policy with the "Kurdish problem".

So because of developments such as these, the "solution process" has completely come to an end and left its place to precautions and security measures. HDP's attempt at turning the developments happening in Northern Syria into domestic politics, also the concern bred from PYD's progress, fear of separation and sensitivity of Turkey for its national historical borders has pushed Turkey to increase precautions.

In the end, these arrests has given opportunity and eased the government's hand that worked with decrees after July 15, in fighting PKK and its extension. It becomes more and more apparent that America will use PYD in its Rakka operation. Given the situation, the state keeps narrowing the workspace of PKK's extension in Turkey. We will see how this situation will affect HDP and its votes in the region. And no doubt the government will exploit this situation for its Presidency System. In the past when a party was closed a new always got opened. Right now, in these incidents, "persons" are prosecuted without closing parties. State mind gives punishments like this in order to change HDP and takes conjunctive precautions.

The founder cadre of the Republic had replaced the Islamic bond between all Muslims and the Khilafah "Caliphate" with secular Turkish nationalism. By this they intended to form a nation from an Ummah. And when they established the Republic they designated two enemies for it. First and foremost was Islam secondly it was the Muslim Kurdish people. AKP projected to "solve" "the Kurdish problem" just like they "solved" the Islam problem through moderation. That is why the region was given, almost completely, to the (terrorist) organisation. But present situation in Syria got in the way of all plans. And the people were left between the state and the organisation. Just like how the agreement between FETÖ and AKP broke, with the Syria problem the agreement between HDP-PKK and "the solution process" has been broken. Now both sides have become enemies. These enemies attack at each other with what they consider proper for two enemies. The victim, like always, is the innocent Kurdish children and our people.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Osman Yıldız