Another pro-Kurdish mayor replaced as detentions continue in southeast Turkey
Police detained more than 50 people on alleged terror links in southeast Turkey a day after yet another mayor with the People's Democratic Party was replaced with a state-appointed trustee.
ISTANBUL — More than 50 people were detained during early morning house raids in southeast Turkey Tuesday. They included Musa Aydin, co-chair of the Gaziantep provincial branch of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP).
According to the state-funded Anadolu news agency, the suspects, most of which are women and include Free Women Movement spokesperson Ayse Gokkan and journalist Ayse Guney, are charged with having links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been waging a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.
The detentions took place a day after Betul Yasar, HDP co-mayor for Diyadin in Turkey’s Agri district, was taken into custody and replaced by a state-appointed trustee Monday. Following Yasar’s detention, trustees have been appointed to 47 of the 65 municipalities won by the HDP in the March 2019 municipal elections, in which an additional six elected HDP mayors were denied the mandate to govern.
The developments come as HDP members and supporters continue to face pressure from Ankara lawmakers, who claim party affiliates have ties to the PKK. In a statement Tuesday, HDP representatives said the ongoing detentions were undermining democratic principles and amounted to “political genocide.”
