AKP former voters in Mardin complain about trustee government of the city, says HDP

HDP Mardin Provincial co-chair Salih Kuday said that the trustees aim at cultural assimilation and added that administrators were brought from Yozgat and Çorum, while former soldiers and police officers were employed.

Speaking to ANF, Kuday said that the trustee regime is first and foremost a product of colonialism. He noted that the history of the 100-year-old Turkish republic shows that the will of the Kurdish people is not recognized.

Stating that the trustees aim at cultural assimilation and profit, Kuday added: “The trustee appointed in 2016 closed the women’s institutions opened during our government of the city. Youth and cultural institutions were also closed and institutions focused on assimilation were opened in their place. The trustees attacked our culture and memory by removing the statue of a symbolic figure like Uğur Kaymaz, who had a place in the memory of the Kurdish people. The trustees continue to play with the demographic structure. How they distribute the money that comes out of the pockets of the people has now become public.”

Police and military are employed

Emphasizing that the trustee municipality was founded on assimilation and uprooting the essence of Mardin, Kuday continued: “Almost all the administrative staff in the trustee municipalities were brought from different cities such as Çorum and Yozgat. In the municipalities, they have been assigned as heads of departments and similar important positions. Even those who have a police and military background or who have resigned from those positions are employed in municipalities. Due to this mismanagement, even the AKP voters started to come to complain to our party.”

Local journalists are threatened

Kuday said that a lot of people other than Kurds are coming to the HDP as all segments of society saw the destruction. “People started to come and complain about this situation to us. We also hear this from journalists in the local press in Mardin. Even the media institutions that advertise the AKP and the trustees every day say that they can no longer hide the truth, but cannot write about it because their families are threatened.”