DIE LINKE in solidarity with Kurdish politician threatened with death in Germany

German Left Party DIE LINKE Essen condemned the death threat against its member Civan Akbulut. The politician of Kurdish origin has been a member of the Integration Council of the city of Essen and a delegate for the State Integration Council of North Rhine-Westphalia since last year.

Instagram, Civan Akbulut received a death threat last Monday, the author of which called himself “Jitem”. “Jitem” was the name for the informal secret service of the Turkish military police, to which quite a few people fell victim, especially in the 1990s of the last century.

Daniel Kerekeš, parliamentary group chairman and speaker for the Essen branch of the party, said;

“We as a district association and council group stand united behind our comrade Civan Akbulut. Civan has filed a criminal complaint and will not be intimidated by the death threat. He will continue to stand up for a solidary, equal and social-ecological society. The death threat against him is part of a series of death threats against other politicians and activists, especially those of Kurdish origin, by Turkish nationalists who, with the backing of the Turkish state, want to intimidate politicians they do not like.

Only at the end of last year member of the German Parliament (Bundestag) Gökay Akbulut, the chairman of the Hamburg left fraction Cansu Özdemir Austrian Green politician Berivan Aslan and many other people made public in a common explanation a wave of death threats by Turkish right-wing extremists. Now it hit the Essen local politician Civan Akbulut, who sits for the Left Party in the Essen Integration Council and is a delegate for the NRW State Integration Council.

The statement says: “The hatred of Turkish fascists is directed against us as active Kurds, Armenians, Arameans, Jews, against leftists anyway. They are encouraged in this by the very top, i.e. by the Turkish AKP government – this is an open secret.”

The signatories note that the influence of the extreme right-wing and ultra-nationalist Turkish organizations has grown nationwide in recent years: “Yet despite the threat situation, the security forces fail to act. On the contrary, they often downplay attacks and threats as ‘eruptive violence’ that occurs ‘situationally’ from time to time.”

Lastly, Daniel Kerekeš explains: “We demand police and national security to take the death threat against Civan Akbulut seriously and to take appropriate measures. It must not be that indirectly the long arm of the Turkish authoritarian state reaches to Essen and threatens people or prevents them, as recently at Düsseldorf airport, from leaving Germany.”