Turkish police have detained 340 people over protests that erupted across Turkey in response to a local electoral authority’s decision to annul the victory of a pro-Kurdish candidate in eastern Turkey and hand the mayorship to the ruling party’s runner-up, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced.
Yerlikaya announced on X on Thursday that the suspects were detained as part of the “Bozdoğan-20” operation conducted in 14 provinces, including Van, Diyarbakır, İzmir, Antalya and Ankara.
The minister said that among other charges, the suspects are accused of engaging in illegal street protests, throwing rocks at law enforcement officers, chanting slogans praising a terrorist organization and disseminating terrorist organization propaganda on social media.
VAN’ da meydana gelen olaylar başta olmak üzere 1️⃣4️⃣ İlde Bölücü Terör Örgütü (BTÖ) adına Kanunsuz Sokak Eylemleri yapan 3️⃣4️⃣0️⃣ şüpheli, eş zamanlı olarak düzenlenen “BOZDOĞAN-20” operasyonlarıyla yakalandı❗
Şüphelilerin;
Van, Diyarbakır, Şırnak, İzmir, Mardin, Batman, Kocaeli,… pic.twitter.com/m4oKqXUgWx— Ali Yerlikaya (@AliYerlikaya) April 4, 2024
Abdullah Zeydan, representing the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), had initially secured the post of mayor of the eastern province of Van by a wide margin in local elections on Sunday.
He had garnered over 55 percent of the vote, but the regional electoral commission said he was ineligible to stand for election, handing city hall to a candidate from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) who received only 27 percent of the vote.
Their decision followed the last-minute reversal of a court verdict that had restored his right to run for office.
Zeydan, who had been elected on the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) (now DEM) ticket in 2015, was arrested in 2016 after criticizing the Turkish army’s air campaign against outlawed Kurdish militants in the Kurdish-majority southeast.
After violent protests against his ouster erupted in Van province, which sits on Turkey’s eastern border with Iran, and spread across the country, Turkey’s Supreme Election Council (YSK) on Wednesday approved an appeal made by the DEM Party against the decision that annulled Zeydan’s victory. With the approval of the appeal, the mandate to serve as the Van’s mayor will now be given to Zeydan.
According to Turkish media reports, 26 out of 60 people, who were referred to the prosecutor’s office after giving their statements to the police in Van on Thursday morning, were sent to court for arrest on charges of “membership in a terrorist organization.”
Lawyer Savaş Avcı, in remarks to the Evrensel daily, said many protestors who were injured and subjected to ill-treatment by the police during the protests are filing criminal complaints against those law enforcement officers.
Meanwhile, a young protestor, 18-year-old Muhammet Orhan, who attracted public attention for smiling during his detention amid the protests in Van, was arrested on Thursday on charges of membership in a terrorist organization.
DEM Party Erzurum MP Meral Danış Beştaş condemned his arrest, alleging on X that the ruling AKP demanded his arrest “without a single piece of evidence or justification.”
“Muhammet is a child who seeks justice and freedom and one who hopes for a promising future! … You’re so desperate that you seek solace in the arrest of a child!” Beştaş added, addressing the government.
Evet ne oldu; iktidar #MuhammetOrhan’ın tutuklanmasını istedi.
Tutuklanma kararında tek bir delil, tek bir gerekçe yok!
Muhammet adalet ve özgürlük isteyen ve geleceğine umutla sarılmak isteyen bir çocuk!
Onu tutuklayarak sadece ve sadece kendi yarattığınız zulüm iklimini… https://t.co/qwSKthFAAQ pic.twitter.com/dxC0i4O2EQ— Meral Danış Beştaş (@meraldanis) April 4, 2024
The İstanbul Governor’s Office announced on Wednesday that a total of 132 people were arrested for protesting Zeydan’s ouster in the city, with 86 detained in the Esenyurt district alone.
Among those detained in Esenyurt were Artı Gerçek news website reporter Müzeyyen Yüce, pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya news agency reporter Ferhat Sezgin, Pir news agency (PİRHA) reporter Dilan Şimşek and Yeni Yaşam daily reporter Sema Korkmaz.
Kurdish politicians and some of their supporters in Turkey are frequently accused of having links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies. They deny the accusations.
Meanwhile, President Erdoğan, who spoke about the protests sparked by the denial of the Van mayorship to Zeydan, accused the protestors of “terrorizing” the streets while praising law enforcement for preventing the incidents from escalating.
“Whoever sees violence, chaos, terrorism and vandalism as a way of seeking rights will be faced with the iron fist of our state. No civilized country in the world would tolerate such a thing,” Erdoğan said, referring to the protests.
Erdoğan’s AKP suffered the worst defeat since its establishment in Sunday’s election, losing major cities and a significant portion of the vote across the country.
