HDP co-leader files complaint upon being attacked by security forces in Silvan

ANKARA

Figen Yuksekdag (C), co-chair of the People's Democratic Party (HDP), reacts after Turkish riot police fired water cannon and tear gas during a demostration against police operations in Diyarbakır's Silvan district on November 12, 2015. AFP Photo

The co-leader of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Figen Yüksekdağ, has filed a complained upon being attacked by security forces in the town of Silvan in the southeastern Anatolian province of Diyarbakır when trying to visit the town while under curfew as a parliamentary delegation.

Yüksekdağ, an elected member of parliament who enjoys legislative immunity, filed her petition to the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office, the HDP headquarters announced on Nov. 17.

The incident subject to the complaint took place on Nov. 12. Videos showed Yüksekdağ being hit with a tear gas canister after she and colleagues were doused by a water cannon.

In her petition, Yüksekdağ asked the legal authorities to prosecute the interior minister, Diyarbakır governor, Silvan sub- governor, Sivan gendarmerie command and more than one unidentified persons on charges of “threatening public peace, insulting, attempting to intentional kill and intentionally wound.”

“We have witnessed a mob that is bent on killing,” she said after the incident in which she sustained slight injuries. “We had already left the law behind, but there is a move that does not take into account even the slightest criterion of humanity.” 

Authorities lifted a punishing curfew on Nov. 14 that was imposed on Nov. 3 in three neighborhoods of Silvan. Turkish security forces, backed up by tanks and combat helicopters, launched a large-scale operation that ended last week to retake control of areas of the town occupied by members of the youth wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).