HDP demands an effective investigation into 16-year-old Aksem’s death

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Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Pervin Buldan spoke at the Parliamentary Group Meeting of the HDP yesterday (March 29).

Referring to the Newroz celebrations last week, Buldan said:

"The magnificent resistance and demand for freedom displayed by the Kurdish people in Newroz sites must have disturbed the government so much that they tried to hinder the people at Amed (Diyarbakır) Newroz, they tortured people and women, even children, by searching them. But they could not prevent people from flocking to the Newroz site".

Arguing that "the aim was to create empty Newroz sites", Buldan said that "these dreams were spoiled and the people knew no obstacles". She added, "This time, millions of people were attempted to be made invisible with a media censorship. But they could not do it, either".

According to Buldan, "people have shown that people's will cannot be hindered by policies of taking hostages, by seizing people's will and plotting coups". She said, "By closing ranks around the HDP in the widest sense possible, millions of people have proven that democratic politics can never be hindered with closure or plot cases and they will never let it happen".

Referring to the imprisonment of outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan and the agreements during the Resolution Process for the Kurdish question, Buldan briefly added:

"Newroz has shown that the Kurdish question can only be solved with dialogue, negotiation and policies of peace, not with isolation, hostility towards Kurds, denial or annihilation. Millions have once against demonstrated that they are behind the 2013 resolution letter and the 2015 Dolmabahçe Agreement. They have cried out their demands for opening the doors of dialogue with İmralı [where Öcalan is jailed] as soon as possible".

Referring to Kurdish as well, Buldan said, "Kurdish people have called out for an end to bans, oppression and assimilation targeting their mother language, especially education in their mother language. They said, 'My mother language is my honor; I will claim my honor to the end'."

Death of Muharrem Aksem, ill prisoners

Further in her speech, HDP Co-Chair Pervin Buldan also talked about the death of 16-year-old Muharrem Aksem, who had been found dead in an area near the shooting range of the police in Urfa:

"At the weekend, in Urfa, the deceased body of 16-year-old Muharrem Aksem, with his right hand dismembered, was found some 400 meters away from the area where security forces were shooting.

"The place where the deceased body of Aksem was found is also a place where shooting takes place; it is a forage, it is a place where people pass. The fact that there is no warning or informative sign addressed to people makes it all the more dangerous.

"An effective investigation must be launched immediately and the responsible ones must definitely be revealed".

Touching upon ill prisoners as well, Buldan addressed the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in this context and argued that "the politics of death manifests itself in the enemy law of the AKP-MHP government against ill prisoners".

Noting that "what happened in the past 15 days is enough to show that prisons have turned into houses of atrocity and death", Buldan said:

"28-year-old Sinan Kaya, held in solitary confinement in Iğdır Type S Closed Prison, suspiciously lost his life. Şervan Can Güder was just 20 years old; he lost his life after having a heart attack in Van Type F Prison. Held in Diyarbakır Type D Closed Prison and released while he was about to lose his life, ill prisoner Hayri Karaş lost his life at the hospital where he was being treated only 10 days after his release. Who is politically responsible for these deaths is the AKP government, which takes not human rights or law, but the September 12 putschists as a reference".

Minimum wage, election law proposal

Concluding her remarks, HDP Co-Chair Buldan also talked about the minimum wage melting in the face of inflation and the ruling alliance's legislative proposal foreseeing amendment to the election law.

Calling on the authorities to determine the minimum wage again, Buldan recalled that the HDP group had already submitted a motion and recommended that the minimum wage should be determined every three months. "Let's pass this at the Parliament immediately," she said.

Referring to the election law proposal poised to reduce the electoral threshold from 10 to 7 percent, she said, "When this government no longer has a story to tell and when it has lost its hope in people, they are now seeking another trick. They have started to trifle with election laws".

Underlining that these efforts are in vain, Pervin Buldan said, "You will lose by such a huge margin that neither the Supreme Election Council and election boards nor your tricks will suffice to save you".

Buldan argued that the government is "now lowering the electoral threshold, which they set to prevent Kurds from entering the Parliament, to enable their junior partner MHP to enter the Parliament".

"It has been 7 years since this threshold was taken down," said Buldan, referring to the HDP's election win in 2015, and added, "As it is no longer meaningful, they now have to reduce it for themselves". (EMK/SD)