Two years after the usurpation of HDP municipalities

Two years after the Turkish Interior Ministry ousted the co-mayors of Diyarbakir, Mardin and Van, a rally was held in front of the provincial association of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in Van. The rally was attended by the deputy co-chair of the party, Meral Danış Beştaş, other deputies and deposed mayors with a banner reading “We are the HDP, we are everywhere. We are fighting against the trustees”.

Meral Danış Beştaş, deputy chair of the HDP parliamentary group, gave a speech which she introduced with greetings to the mayors in Turkish prisons. She said that they were not prisoners, but political hostages. “Hostage-taking in this case means that those elected by the people are locked up between four walls because they stood up for their people and told the truth. Right now, the whole of Turkey is being handed over to a forced trustee regime. When the first state trustee was appointed, we warned about this and said: if we don’t raise our voices now, this regime will prevail. In the meantime, this concern has come true,” the politician said.

Meral Danış Beştaş went on to say that corruption prevails in the usurped municipalities and the trustees provide for the government’s profit. She pointed out that the city halls have been turned into garrisons and the trustees can only move around with bodyguards. However, the HDP and the Kurdish people will not be brought to their knees by any method, she said and added, “We are stronger than you because we are in the right. The HDP means hope and it continues to stand tall.”