Outrage over attack in Turkey on funeral for Kurdish politician's mother

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) - An attack by a racist mob on a funeral ceremony Wednesday in the Turkish capital of Ankara for the deceased mother of the imprisoned Deputy Co-chair of the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Aysel Tugluk drew condemnation and outrage.

In a press release, the HDP described the assailants who chanted racist and religious slogans during the funeral for Hatun Tugluk as "a horde bereft of human values."

The second largest opposition party went on holding the government responsible for the incident over "sowing seeds of hostility in every cell of the society."

HDP accused the Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and primarily the leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of creating the environment for hatred.

The mob chanted "this is not an Armenian cemetery, we won't allow burial of a terrorist here," and religious slogans "Ya Allah, Bismillah, Allahu Akbar."

Nobody was injured during the incident but the crowd achieved their objective of not allowing the burial of the Alevi woman in the cemetery they said belonged to Sunni Muslims only.

Main opposition Republican's People Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, himself from the same Kurdish province of Dersim where the Tugluks hail from, called HDP politician's brother Alaatin Tugluk and relayed his condolences while condemning the attack.

Soylu who in the immediate aftermath of the attack visited the Ankara cemetery where Kurdish politician's mother was not allowed to be buried expressed "sorrow" and said there were arrests without further details on an investigation.

"As our President states our fundamental philosophy is one state, one homeland, one nation, one flag," he said, vowing commitment to fight "terror" and falling short of condemning the assault on the funeral of Tugluk who died of natural causes related to her old age.

Bozdag said the perpetrators would be held accountable in front of justice and there was no statement from Yildirim.

A spokesperson for Erdogan at a Thursday press conference said the President's office condemned the assault 'in the strongest terms possible,' adding they would be following the case.

After the assault, the family decided to exhume Tugluk's body from the grave to transport it to Dersim.

Tugluk who the Turkish authorities hold in prison in the Kocaeli province since her arrest in December 2016, attended her mother's Ankara funeral under gendarmerie custody and with special permission from judicial authorities.

She was though on Thursday not allowed to go to Dersim where the family buried her mother, reported Kurdistan 24's Turkish language service.

Hatun Tugluk was until her death attending her daughter's trials in a wheelchair.

Prosecutors last week asked up to 22 years and six months in prison for the HDP Deputy, accusing her of membership in the armed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has been waging a decades-long guerrilla warfare against the Turkish state for larger Kurdish rights.

Editing by Ava Homa