Mass arrests this morning (April 25) in Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakır were carried out by local police, targeting members of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP). Diyarbakır is among the largest cities in southeastern Anatolia, and is known as a cultural capital for the region’s ethnic Kurdish minority. In the operations that targeted politicians, journalists, lawyers, and artists associated with the HDP, some 126 individuals were taken into custody.
“Suspected organization membership” was the reason given for the mass detention, which serves likely as a euphemism for involvement in a separatist political organization. Southeastern Turkey has long been a host to conflict between Turkish government forces and separatist Kurdish militant groups, and while violence has declined from a peak of major civilian unrest in the 1990s, the situation remains delicate. The most prominent of these militant groups, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), is classified as a terrorist organization by the Turkish government and has been banned for years. Pro-Kurdish political parties in Turkey such as the HDP have long been dogged by accusations of PKK connections. The HDP currently faces a closure suit before Turkey’s supreme court related to alleged terror connections.
This morning’s mass arrest took place in some 21 municipalities throughout the Diyarbakır province and was the result of an investigation currently being carried out by the Diyarbakır Attorney General’s office.
Reactions from HDP and more
Condemnation from HDP representatives, politicians, and affiliated lawyers was swift and damning on Tuesday morning. In a post on their English-language Twitter account, the HDP characterized the mass arrest as an attempt by the Turkish government to interfere in the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14:
“This morning, the regime carried out massive arrests in Amed [Diyarbakir] to impact the election which is just 19 days away.
-Lawyers who could keep an eye on election security,
-Independent journalists who may report voter fraud,
-Green Left Party’s election campaign managers (YSP),
-Printing house owners who work with a political party’s election campaign.
So far 110 are detained by the regime police. (Numbers expected to rise)”
Selahattin Demirtaş, a former co-chair of the HDP who has been imprisoned in Edirne on alleged terrorism charges since 2016, gave his take on the mass arrest in a Tuesday morning Twitter post: “Süleyman Soylu [Turkish Interior Minister] has had more people taken into custody than he could assemble at his political rallies! To all of our friends carrying out election campaigns across all 81 provinces: Let’s continue to expand our work more patiently and decisively. They will not be able to prevent peace, prosperity, and the success of our democracy.”
The HDP’s official Turkish-language press release on the mass arrest characterized it as “an operation aimed at stealing the will of the people and the ballot box.” High-ranking HDP official Özlem Gündüz, who serves as the party’s co-vice chairwoman, was among the 126 detainees.
The Diyarbakır Bar, a professional association which represents lawyers practicing in the province, also released a statement condemning the mass arrests, which included numerous practicing members of the organization. Their statement read: “We are living through an era in which basic rights and freedoms are being interfered with in an extremely arbitrary manner.” The statement also called for the immediate release of all the lawyers and journalists detained in the raids.
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Written/translated for Medyascope by Leo Kendirck
