Politics

Latest arrests mean no more local, parliamentary reps for Kurdish Province in Turkey

Hakkari city's own Co-mayors Dilek Hatipoglu and Nurullah Ciftci were arrested, imprisoned and subsequently dismissed from their posts in late August.

Ari Khalidi 2016/12/03 18:29

kurdistan Hakkari Bakur Turkey

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Kurdistan24) - The Kurdish province of Hakkari has no more representatives at the local or parliamentary level after the Saturday detentions by Turkish authorities of the elected mayors of three towns there.

Turkish anti-terror police units arrested co-mayors of the districts of Semdinli, Yuksekova, and Cukurca in raids targeting municipalities and mayors' houses in terror-related probes, reported Kurdistan24 Diyarbakir bureau.

The operations started at the same time in the morning.

In Yuksekova (Gever in Kurdish) near the border with Iranian Kurdistan, police detained the co-mayor Adile Kozay as they conducted a search at her municipality.

Adile Kozay was chosen by her town's council as the acting mayor since late 2015 when the co-mayor Ruken Yetiskin was imprisoned by Turkish authorities.

Yetiskin was elected with 86 percent of votes in the 2014 local elections.

Also on the Iranian Kurdistan border, in Semdinli (Şemzînan) police detained the co-mayor Seferi Yilmaz during a raid on his house.

Yilmaz got 50 percent of votes in the local elections.

There was also a raid on the Semdinli municipal building which the police draped in Turkish flags, reported private-owned Dogan news agency.

In Cukurcu (Çelê) police raided the municipality, headquarters of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), and a now-shuttered aid organization, detaining the Co-mayors Hilal Duman and Servet Tunc as well as the local head of the party's Cumhur Erdemir alongside five other people.

Hakkari city's own co-mayors Dilek Hatipoglu and Nurullah Ciftci were arrested, imprisoned and subsequently dismissed from their posts in late August, as the Interior Ministry seized their municipality in September.

Also in September at least 20 officials of the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) in the province were taken into detention.

The latest move followed last month's imprisonment of the HDP leaders and lawmakers, including all three representatives from Hakkari Selma Irmak, Abdullah Zeydan, and Nihat Akdogan who received 84 percent of the local vote.

Editing by Ava Homa