Washington Kurdish Institute
August 26, 2019
Selahattin Demirtas, one of the most prominent Kurdish political leaders in Turkey, has been jailed by the Turkish state since late 2016. Demirtas was previously co-chair of the progressive Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which fights for the rights of women, Kurds, and various minority groups within Turkey, and earned the ire of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after leading a number of successful electoral campaigns and gaining worldwide recognition as a charismatic voice for change in Turkey. The HDP was established in 2012 as multi-ethnic, multi-religious progressive party that included not only most of Turkey’s leading Kurdish politicians, but also left-wing Turkish activists such as former co-leader Figen Yuksekdag (now also in jail) and Christian representatives. In 2015, the HDP made history as the first majority Kurdish party to enter Turkish parliament as a bloc, exceeding the country’s 10% threshold.
The HDP won votes from Kurds and other minority voters as well as many Turks, appealing to those who embraced a message of pluralism and opposition to the militant nationalist rhetoric that has dominated Turkey’s political scene since the country’s founding in 1923.
After almost three years Demirtas remains in prison, awaiting the verdict from tens of cases against him while simultaneously serving a prison sentence of 4 years and 8 months for the charge of “making propaganda for a terrorist organization.” These charges relate to a speech he made in 2013 during a public commemoration ceremony for three Kurdish women activists who were murdered in France. Both French authorities and the Kurds accused Turkish intelligence agents of these killings. At present, Erdogan’s is holding thousands of Kurds and Turks in jailed, and this number skyrocketed after the failed coup attempt in July 2016, which was used by Erdogan as a pretense to strengthen his grip on power and purge all real and perceived opponents, including the HDP, who harshly and unreservedly condemned the coup attempt before it was foiled. Since Erdogan ended the Turkish-Kurdish peace process in 2015, thousands have faced the accusation of “making propaganda for a terrorist organization,” with Demirtas being among the first and most prominent.
As a veteran human rights lawyer, Demirtas sought to use peaceful methods to solve the Kurdish issue in Turkey, hoping to end the Turkish state’s aggression against the indigenous Kurdish people within the country’s borders that has continued since the establishment of Turkey. After being chosen co-chair of the HDP, Demirtas won the hearts of millions throughout Turkey and worldwide when running in the August 2014 presidential election. Despite a paucity of media coverage, Demirtas won 9.7% of the votes. In June 2015, the HDP won tens of thousands of Turkish votes, backed by concern over Erdogan’s intention to officially seize more powers by becoming an executive president. Demirtas took a strong stand in opposition to the executive presidency, standing against Erdogan and declaring, in March 2015, that “We will not make you [executive] president.” While the main Turkish opposition party, the People’s Republican Party (CHP), had little success in frustrating the designs of Erdogan, Demirtas gained prominence and became a novel voice of opposition to Erdogan’s attempts to grab more power for himself, and he also gained nationwide recognition as an advocate of peace between Turks and Kurds. Demirtas was a leading participant in the peace process between the Turkish state and Kurdish leadership until this dialogue was unilaterally ended by Erdogan, and was a tireless advocate for peace.
“Dear Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as long as the HDP remains and our voters remain on this land, we will make you president, we will make you president, we will make you president.” These words – “we will make you president” – referred not to the official title of President of the Republic, which indeed was already held by Erdogan, but rather to the concept of an executive presidency, which was Erdogan’s project to concentrate additional power in the presidency, severely diluting the powers of the country’s parliament and other institutions. These words became an electoral slogan, and resonated with many in Turkey, Kurds and Turks alike, who were disturbed by Erdogan’s authoritarian tendencies and blatant attempts to rule without any system of checks and balances. Riding a wave of anti-authoritarian sentiment of many who had tired of Erdogan’s rule, the HDP won a surprising 13.12% of the country’s votes and entered parliament as a bloc, and Erdogan’s party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), lost its ruling majority in parliament for the first time in 13 years. Erdogan did not take this result lightly, and embarked on a campaign of war and destruction against Kurdish cities and villages and forced a rerun of the election in November of the same year.
Since Erdogan ended the peace process, the HDP and Kurdish citizens of Turkey more broadly have suffered harshly at the hands of Erdogan and the AKP. Indeed, the aggression against the Kurdish people by the state and its armed forces extends beyond Turkey’s borders, reaching far into both Iraq and Syria. Erdogan and his allies are doing their best to deprive the Kurdish people of any opportunity to express their own will or control their own affairs within the context of Turkey’s political and governmental frameworks. Just recently, Erdogan’s regime decided to remove democratically elected Kurdish mayors three major Kurdish cities (Diyarbakir, Van, and Mardin) and replace them with appointed trustees. This move is not a new technique – in 2016, the Turkish state removed 90 of the 102 HDP mayors from power and replaced them with trustees. Following the decision, the Turkish police detained hundreds across Turkey who protested this most recent violation of basic norms of democracy. Some consider Erdogan’s move as retaliation against the HDP for refraining from participating in recent local elections in a number since they of cities, which guaranteed the defeat of the AKP by the main opposition party, the CHP, in both Istanbul and Ankara. The HDP responded to this aggression by denouncing the removal of the mayors by “Erdogan’s regime” and laying out the history of the AKP’s alliance with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) against the Kurdish people.
“As HDP, we remain committed as ever before to protesting this autocratic coup against the popular will of our electorate as part of our struggle for a pluralist democratic political system, a powerful local democracy, and sustained peace in our country. We urge Turkey’s larger political opposition and the international democratic 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,” read the HDP statement.
While the western governments denounced the anti-democratic move by the Turkish state, they nonetheless continue to turn a blind eye to Turkey’s aggression against Kurds in all parts of Kurdistan, including Erdogan’s atrocities in against the Kurds of Syria. The formation of the HDP provided hope for the democratization of the country, but, as ongoing campaigns by the Turkish state prevent the HDP from participating in what remains of Turkey’s political process, there is less and less reason for optimism. Other opposition groups in Turkey, most notable the CHP, should join the HDP and raise their voice not only against the unlawful removal of the mayors and detention and imprisonment of democratically-elected officials, but also against the persecution of millions of Kurds in Turkey and the war crimes perpetrated by Turkey’s armed forces and security personnel in the country and beyond its borders.