‘Trustees appointed to 48 HDP municipalities since 2019’

* Photos: HDP's website; politicians' Twitter accounts

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Democratic Local Authorities Council Co-Spokespersons Hediye Karaaslan and Salim Kaplan and HDP MP Mehmet Rüştü Tiryaki shared the findings of the HDP's new report "Seizure of Will and Realities on Trustees" in a press conference at the HDP Central Office in the capital city of Ankara today (February 24).

Speaking about the HDP's report published in Kurdish, Turkish and English, Co-Spokesperson Hediye Karaaslan briefly said:

"Political power holders and the Ministry of Interior have been making black propaganda against our party, co-mayors and municipal activities for some time now. This propaganda has been going on with almost no interruption since 2016, when a trustee was appointed for the first time.

"It has reached such an extent that we are faced with distorted allegations disclosed by a single center every day. The Ministry, unable to slow down, made a booklet out of its black propaganda three months ago."

Further in her speech, Hediye Karaaslan noted that "the trustee system collapsed in the public conscience," briefly adding, "The Ministry officials are trying to legitimize the trustees, the civil servants of the government, under the name of 'services' because the corruption and irregularities committed by the trustees as well as their policies hostile to people and women are reported in the press and heard by the public every day."

Trustees appointed to 48 municipalities

Sharing details from the report, HDP's Karaaslan said that in the recent period, the first trustee was appointed on June 19, 2019, when trustees were appointed to HDP's Metropolitan Municipalities of Van, Diyarbakır and Mardin in the country's Kurdish-majority eastern and southeastern region.

"Since then, trustees have been appointed to our 48 municipalities; three of them were metropolitan municipalities, five of them are provincial municipalities and 33 are district municipalities," said Karaaslan.

"Our 72 co-mayors were detained in this process. Our 37 co-mayors, 19 of whom were women, were captivated in prisons at different times."

15 co-mayors still arrested

According to the report, 15 HDP co-mayors are currently arrested and seven of them are women. During the term of the current government in office, seven HDP co-mayors were placed under house arrest.

Speaking about the issue, Hediye Karaaslan said, "Our six co-mayors have been under house arrest for the last 10 months. There is neither an indictment nor a charge brought against them. House arrest has turned into a method of punishment in this period."

Municipal councils de facto closed

Referring to the municipal councils as well, Karaaslan protested that "807 municipal council members of the HDP cannot fulfil their duties as the trustees appointed to the municipalities closed the municipal councils, the decision-making organs on the local level, in a de facto manner and seized the people's right to participate in governance."

She also noted that with the trustees appointed to 48 HDP municipalities, the will of 4 million 356 thousand 819 voters was seized: "In other words, they have been deprived of their right to elect and to be elected."

'We are insistent on co-chairpersonship'

Within this context, HDP's Karaaslan also raised concerns that "in this period, the political power holders targeted women's gains and the system of co-chairpersonship more than it had done ever before."

"Women's gains have been destroyed via the trustees and co-chairpersonship is attempted to be criminalized," she said.

"There have been serious attacks targeting our co-chairpersonship system by the ministry in this period. Co-chairpersonship is added to indictments, criminal complaints are filed against it.

"But we would like to note that neither the ministry officials nor the judiciary that works upon instruction has encountered any criminal element."

According to the statement, in the last local elections in Turkey in 2019, 90 percent of HDP municipalities were won by women co-mayors.

Women's representation in the municipalities won by the HDP is 55 percent while this rate is around 20 percent in other parties, she said.

Concluding her remarks, Karaaslan noted that HDP was "insistent on the system of co-chairpersonship," saying, "As long as we insist on a free and equal life, we will insist on co-chairpersonship."

Giving examples of how women's gains have been undermined after the appointment of trustees, she briefly said:

"After the trustee was appointed in Van, our 11 women workers were laid off. For instance, our Mardin Municipality Women's Policies Department Chair was dismissed from public service after the trustee appointment. Men have been appointed as directors of women policies in Mardin, Batman and Sur. They closed the violence emergency hotline in Mardin." (DŞ/SD)

* Click here for the full report in English