HDP co-chairs accuse gov’t over spiraling violence

ISTANBUL / ANKARA

CİHAN photo

The co-chairs of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) have accused the government over increasing violence in Turkey’s southeastern and eastern provinces and against HDP branch offices. 

“I want to remind [Prime Minister Ahmet] Davutoğlu that you are now in history as a prime minister [responsible for the] murder of children. You are in history as a prime minister who did not allow the funeral of children,” HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş said on Sept. 8.

“Turkish society knows why he does this. You have sent soldiers, the youth to their deaths only in order to be voted back into government,” Demirtaş was referring to the death of a young girl who was shot dead in front of her home during clashes between the security forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Cizre district of Şırnak province on Sept. 7. The body of 10-year-old Cemile Cizir Çağırga had to wait in her house due to a curfew in the district and her mother was seen putting ice bags on her dead body due to the hot weather, in photographs released by several media reports. 

Demirtaş, however, also urged people to keep calm despite the provocations. “My brothers, withstand all this offensiveness, don’t break the brotherhood. As Kurds and Turks, embrace each other. Peace is the best treatment against these provocations,” he said.

Once again, the HDP co-chair called on the PKK to silence its weapons in the run-up to snap elections scheduled for Nov. 1.

A total of 128 buildings used by the HDP were attacked late on Sept. 8, a few hours after the Turkish army stated that 16 soldiers had been killed in a PKK attack in the Dağlıca district of the southeastern province of Hakkari.

HDP Co-Chair Figen Yüksekdağ said in a press conference on Sept. 8 that 128 HDP buildings across Turkey had been attacked. 

“These were all planned attacks. All of them were done in front of the police … We are facing a revenge operation carried out against society by a political structure that has lost its ruling power,” said Yüksekdağ.

The wave of PKK attacks has triggered nationalist anger among some Turks, with mobs staging revenge attacks against targets across the country. 

Crowds near the Mediterranean city of Mersin closed a highway and attacked buses travelling to Kurdish regions, breaking windows with rocks, newspapers reported. 

About 2,000 people also overran a state construction project in Erzurum province, angry at a group of builders suspected of sympathizing with the PKK, daily BirGün said.