Karapatan Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights – Philippines calls on Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to immediately release pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) leaders.
On November 4, HDP Co-chairs Sellahatin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag were arrested along with nine other members of the parliament as part of the crackdown against members of the opposition party. The Erdogan regime used the July 15 failed coup as a pretext to arrest the leaders of the Kurdish people saying they were behind the coup.
Karapatan Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights – Philippines calls on Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to immediately release pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) leaders.
On November 4, HDP Co-chairs Sellahatin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag were arrested along with nine other members of the parliament as part of the crackdown against members of the opposition party. The Erdogan regime used the July 15 failed coup as a pretext to arrest the leaders of the Kurdish people saying they were behind the coup.
Journalists and staffs of a pro-Kurdish newspaper, Cumhuriyet were also arrested days before Demirtas’ arrest.
The Kurdish people have waged a struggle for their collective right as a nation-state for many decades. Many governments of Turkey, Syria and Iraq have tried to suppress the Kurdish people in order to occupy their lands.
Yet, they persist in the struggle for their homeland and their existence as a people. They even persisted in taking back their territories from CIA-backed terrorist group ISIS/Daech.
We express our solidarity with the Kurdish people in their fight for national self-determination and freedom. As thousands of the Kurdish activists and freedom fighters are imprisoned, tortured, killed or disappeared, hundreds of
Filipinos fighting for genuine democracy and freedom also suffer the same fate.
We join the International League of Peoples’ Struggle as it stage simultaneous protests in different countries in calling for the freedom of Demirtas and Yuksekdag and all Kurdish political prisoners including Abdullah Ocalan.
Stop the political repression in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan!