ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Supporters of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) staged a protest on Saturday in Akdeniz, Mersin province where the co-mayors and four members of a municipal council were recently detained.
“This is like terror," said Perihan Koca, a DEM Party member of parliament from Mersin.
Hosyar Sariyildiz, a member of the DEM Party and mayor of Mersin's Akdeniz district, his deputy Nuriye Aslan, and four other members of the municipal council were detained on Friday as part of a terror-related investigation. A government-appointed trustee has been assigned to fill the role of mayor.
This is a tactic frequently used by Turkish authorities. Since 2016, dozens of mayors have been dismissed and replaced with trustees. Many of the elected officials have been sentenced to jail on terror-related charges, often accused of association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
"In the Turkish Republic, especially after 2015 and 2016, an extraordinary law is being implemented. Along with the trustee policies, this has reached such a stage that even the right to elect and be elected is being taken away from the people, which is one of the basic human rights," said Koca.
The detention of the mayors is coinciding with fresh efforts to bring about peace between Ankara and the PKK, more than a decade after another peace process collapsed.
"This is inconsistent of course, this needs to be clearly addressed. Because what is called a process, what is called societal peace, is not something that happened for the first time in Turkey," said Mehmet Rustu Tiryaki, a DEM Party member of parliament from Batman.
"In different countries, too, when internal conflicts and tensions occurred, they ultimately ended with a peace process," he added.
Late last month, a DEM Party delegation, consisting of the party’s lawmakers Pervin Buldan and Sirri Sureyya Onder, was granted rare access to Imrali prison to meet jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Reacting to the detention of the Akdeniz mayors, DEM Party co-chair Tuncer Bakirhan said the government cannot remove pro-Kurdish elected officials while claiming to work for peace.
The DEM Party’s predecessor, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), played a key role in negotiating peace talks a decade ago. The short-lived ceasefire collapsed in 2015 and was followed by intense urban fighting in the southwestern Kurdish areas.