Jailed HDP co-chair self-criticizes own party for ‘problems of seasonal workers’

EDİRNE

Jailed Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş has said his own party has faults in the issue of the problems seasonal workers face, as he commented on the deaths of seven workers in the northwestern province of Sakarya. 

“We need to accept that we are lacking in finding solutions to seasonal labor and problems stemming from it. We need to make self-criticisms. We can’t find a solution otherwise,” Demirtaş said in a letter he sent from the jail where he is being kept in the western province of Edirne, adding that “while the Labor and Social Security Ministry is primarily at fault in work murders, finding solutions to the issue is also in the hands of local governances that have been operative in the region because of the fact that seasonal workers are coming from Kurdish provinces,” he said.  

“I would like it to be known that I feel sad and responsible over the tragedies that stem from seasonal work,” he said.