Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has started its “conscience and justice watch” in İstanbul’s Kadıköy district with the participation of several deputies.
Police closed the area to traffic and a heavy police presence was seen inside and outside the park. Police are also on duty in pre-determined entrances to the park. Armored police vehicles and water cannons have been deployed to the area.
HDP deputies Garo Paylan, Sırrı Süreyya Önder, Filiz Kerestecioğlu and Hüda Kaya, as well as representatives from several organisations and parties entered the park at around 12 p.m.
Speaking before the watch was initiated, Önder said “watches will be spread” from the northwestern province of Edirne to the southeastern province of Hakkari.
“These watches will bring together those seeking democracy and peace in Turkey. They cannot stop this,” Önder told journalists.
He added that deputies and municipality workers of the HDP had been “subjected to a destruction operation.”
“Our elected municipal council members, provincial and district heads, co-chairs and deputies have been subjected to a massive destruction operation. However, they won’t be successful,” Önder said.
HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş, former co-chair and deputy Figen Yüksekdağ, and eight deputies from the party were arrested, facing hundreds of years in jail. The first arrests were carried out on Nov. 4, 2016 and continued in the following months.
Meanwhile, HDP co-chair Serpil Kemalbay said on Aug. 1 that the party expects support from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) for the “justice watch.”
Kemalbay said the HDP supported the CHP during the latter’s “justice march,” and the main opposition “needs to support” the HDP’s initiative in return.
“We hope this solidarity becomes stronger. All those carrying out a struggle for democracy need to show the same sort of support that we presented,” she added.
EMEP President Selma Gürkan, who was at the park, talked to Evrensel: "Justice began to be a common request for this country. Because there is no justice in any of the AKP policies. There is no justice in the results. Therefore, the struggle for democracy has also become an important demand. At the same time, an entire society was united in justice. We believe that we can win through a common struggle for democracy, peace and justice. We have to go along in this all together. September 1st is world peace day ahead. We must join around these demands on World Day of Peace. We must grow the struggle for democracy and justice."
HDP deputy Prof. Dr. Mithat Sancar held a speech in at the 'Vigil of Conscience and Justice', and evaluated the general state of affairs in the country.
Sancar stressed that the ruling system did not content itself with oppression and prohibitions, but keeps intensifying its evilness, and stated:
"We live in such a time where justice has died in Turkey. It is truly a sick humour and pure irony to speak here about justice. where the system has killed off justice. The only way to lend justice a meaning is the perseverance of the righteous people demanding it."
Naming oppression and prohibitions as basic characteristics of authoritarian systems, Sancar said:
"The last step of the transition into a fascist rule is made by the plunge into evilness. There hasn't ever been any authoritarian system which turned fascist just on its own accord. The very moment evilness and tyranny come to the fore and people get terrorized indiscriminately, it is clear that the ruling system has completely shifted into fascism, right from its core."
Sancar referred to the site of the vigil and said, "Just look around yourselves in this park, how thousands of policemen have encircled it with blockades. The only place which they left us is the old tree here in the park. Prohibitions and oppressions didn't satisfy them, now they bolster these with evilness."
Prof. Sancar finished his speech with the words, "Truth against the lies, justice against the oppression and terror, conscience against evilness. All of our friends are resisting in prisons against the oppression, all our friends are mounting resistance in all fields, so we too, let us come together and counter the fascism with our display of unflinching courage." (EVRENSEL DAILY)
Bülent Falakaoğlu
Hakkı Özdal
