Picture of Turkish Governor in burnt Kurdish house creates uproar

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – A picture the Turkish deputy governor of the Kurdish province of Sirnak recently shared of him posing in a house burnt down during army clashes with Kurdish fighters led to condemnation by the opposition parties.

The Ankara-appointed Governor Ali Arikan released the photograph on his personal Instagram account with the note “into the sun” on Friday.

Arikan is seen in a pitch-black suit and sunglasses while looking through a window in the building whose partly-demolished interiors are covered in soot.

Lawmakers from the Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and the secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP) deplored the governor for the picture.

HDP member of parliament Aycan Irmez of Sirnak asked Prime Minister Binali Yildirim whether the deputy governor’s sharing of the picture was a “means of showing state power.”

“Who gave the authority to Arikan to make fun of the people of Sirnak in this rude and offending way,” she asked in a written parliamentary question on Monday.

There was no reply by the PM at the time of publishing this report.

Another HDP MP Adem Geveri of the Wan (Van) Province called Arikan “a colonial governor,” and accused the government of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) for his act.

“The President [Recep Tayyip Erdogan] and the AKP are using such depraved officials to keep racists and fascists on their side,” Geveri said in a Sunday telephone conversation with a Kurdistan24 reporter.

The main opposition CHP’s Deputy Leader and Istanbul lawmaker Sezgin Tanrikulu took to Twitter to protest the governor.

Tanrikulu, himself a Kurd and human rights lawyer, demanded to know why a governor would pose in a burnt house.

“Do you now understand why they burnt and destroyed Sirnak,” HDP lawmaker Lezgin Botan asked his followers.

“This colonial officer has arrogantly posed in front of the barbarian achievement they created,” said Botan in a tweet.

Sirnak’s city center was the scene of fierce clashes between youth affiliates of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish army last year.

The violence killed hundreds from both sides including civilians.

The city remained under a round-the-clock curfew for over nine months until November 2016 with the military deploying tanks and heavy weaponry that shelled urban areas.

90 percent of the 63,000 population of Sirnak fled their homes and lived in tents in rural areas for months as whole neighborhoods lay in ruins.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany