Latif Serhildan
I am appealing to Irish nation in this article hoping they will understand the suffering that Irish wnet through when they elected Bobby Sand while he was in prison. I am writing this article as a Kurd, as a human being also as a democratically minded person. My anger and frustration is with the states that are so backward in their mentality when comes to Kurdish nation. I wish to protest against the decision by the Turkish election board to ban Kurdish deputy Hatip Dicle from taking his seat in parliament.
The recent general election in Turkey confirmed the democratic mandate of the pro-Kurdish political party BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) which won a majority in many Kurdish cities and returned a total of 36 deputies nationally, including 11 women and 6 imprisoned candidates. This increase in support was in spite of harassment from Turkish premier Erdogan and his ruling AKP, who lost out to the Kurdish party. Support for PKK, the banned Kurdistan Workers Party, and the imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan among the people attending many of the pre-election rallies in the Kurdish regions was also clearly and fearlessly expressed.
Since 2008 under the rule of the last AKP government, thousands of Kurdish activists and politicians, including elected mayors, have been arrested in Turkey. These mass arrests led to the infamous KCK trial that is ongoing. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s ruling AKP has an Islamic agenda in Turkey and it has used Islam in order to gain support both from Turkish and Kurdish voters there. It has become clear that Erdogan has no will to bring an end to the 30-year-old conflict or to bring true democracy to Turkey.
In spite of being re-elected with over 70 thousand votes, the Turkish election board (YSK) unanimously decided to strip Hatip Dicle of his mandate. Mr Dicle was detained in December 2009 as part of the KCK detentions and has been in custody since. Now his BDP parliamentary colleagues will boycott parliament until the issue is resolved to the benefit of the 70 thousand voters who have been disenfranchised by the move. I urge the newly elected Irish TDs to show their support for Mr Dicle and the Kurdish people’s democratic peace efforts in Turkey.