HDP co-chair criticizes government’s plans to revoke citizenship

ISTANBUL

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Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş has criticized the government’s plans to strip “terrorist sympathizers” of their citizenship, saying that a similar “junta” practice took place during “Hitler’s fascism” and Turkey’s coup eras.

“Those who are stripped of humanity are threatening to strip us of citizenship. We are inviting them to humanity,” Demirtaş told journalists at a hotel after a meeting he attended with party members, writers and opinion leaders in Istanbul’s Taksim district on April 9.

“The conditions to strip someone of their citizenship are not easy. This country is everyone’s common country. Everyone will see it and believe in it. This is not a country of a single ethnic identity or a single race. He who commits racism and says ‘those who are not like me are traitors; that person can’t carry the citizenship of this country’ tears society apart with his own hands,” he said. 

During a speech on April 5, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lashed out at academics, journalists, politicians and civil servants, who, he believes, support terror groups, saying the state does not have to “carry anyone who is in treason to the state and nation on its back.”

“We have to be determined to take all measures including revoking citizenship in order to eliminate supporters of terrorist groups. They cannot even be our citizens,” said Erdoğan in his remarks, which were followed by statements from Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ noting the required work in this regard would be done.