HADEP Voters Treated as Fake Voters

HADEP is a party that supports Turkey's large Kurdish minority.

Akad however, argues that Governor Akif Tig's claim that 1,222 people with false addresses were registered as voters is not true. "Political worries shape their actions".

"They acted with political reasons to prevent voter registrations. They were not trying to prevent repeated registrations; their actions overshadowed the state's impartiality," argued Akad.

"We condemn this incident, which is a direct interference to people's freedom. We call on the independent jurisdiction to take action and on public to be more reactive."

"The street and house numbers have changed"

Mehmet Ihsan Tas, who had been accused by Governor Tig for "writing down the police station as his address," defended himself at the HADEP headquarters in Mersin, at the end of a press statement Wednesday:

"I have been living in the same house for the last ten years. The street and house numbers have changed due to a regulation by the Akdeniz Municipality. The address that used to belong to my house, is now the address of the police station."

"Voting is a right and a duty"

"Voting is a right and a duty in parliamentarian systems," said Akad. He continued by explaining that in Mersin, instead of encouraging people to vote and making voting easier, certain implementations do the exact opposite:

"Equally and impartially enabling and encouraging people to vote should be the mission of especially all public institutions and personnel, as well as political parties and non-governmental organizations. Although the Supreme Electoral Board has confirmed this mission, in Mersin, certain implementations are in the exact opposite direction."

"Control and pressure, not help"

Akad talked about the obstructions directed at HADEP:

* They are seizing the vehicles we have rented to transport the people from the headman offices to the Supreme Electoral Board.

* Many people who were helping the illiterate and the elderly were detained.

* They are visiting the people who registered as voters "to prevent repeated and fake registrations." These visits end up as interrogations.

* The headman offices have been so-to-speak occupied by security forces for days.

* Many people who witnessed these incidents did not dare register as voters because they were scared.

"We have visited the county electoral board and the prosecutor"

* The right to vote, which should be made easier, is being obstructed by the legally unexplainable implementations of the police.

* We visited the head of the country's electoral board and the prosecutor to tell them about our worries. We handed a petition to the electoral board demanding the prevention of such implementations. (BB/EA/NM)