Bouquet sent to Demirtaş alarms HDP headquarters

ANKARA

A bouquet of flowers sent to the co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) alarmed security staff at the HDP’s party headquarters, amid concerns following the deadly July 20 attack in the Suruç town of southeastern Şanlıurfa province.

Security staff at the HDP headquarters returned the bouquet of flowers sent to co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş after it set off the alarm of a metal detector when they checked it, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported on July 21.

The person who brought the bouquet said he didn’t know who sent it and he was just given the delivery address, the agency said.

When the bouquet arrived at the headquarters an urgent meeting of the party’s Central Executive Board (MYK) presided by Demirtaş and fellow co-chair Figen Yüksekdağ was going on inside the building.

Following the suicide bombing close to Turkey’s border with Syria that left at least 32 activists dead, the HDP executives delivered warning messages voicing their concern over a security failure.

“The current government is responsible for all kinds of intelligence and security vulnerabilities,” Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ said in a written statement released on July 20, a few hours after the attack. 

“However, our people, our political institutions, civil society organizations, municipalities, all social structures such as vocational organizations should develop their own security measures. At all our party buildings and collective places, there should be special security measures. We must develop measures to prevent such blithe and blatant attacks by ISIL [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] against our people and institutions,” Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ said.

The statement drew criticism from governmental officials and pro-government media, who argued it was meant to call on people to take up arms - an argument fiercely rejected by the HDP.