Press release by our Central Executive Board on the arrest of Alp Altınörs, our vice co-Chair:
Our Central Executive Committee member and Deputy Co-chair in Charge of Expansion Alp Altınörs was detained after a raid on his house the night of September 9. After 6 days, he was taken to the court in the late hours of the night without any notice and arrested around 05:00 am in the morning.
His being unlawfully arrested on grounds attending the funeral of Zakir Karabulut, who lost his life in the massacre of October 10, 2015 in Ankara is a blow against democratic politics.
The perpetrators of the October 10th massacre haven’t been brought to light yet and with every passing day, and with new documents coming to light, the possibility of state involvement in the massacre grows stronger. What is necessary is that the actual culprits of the October 10th Ankara Massacre be tried, but this is not being done. Instead, politicians who attended the funerals of the suicide-bomb victims are being put on trial, the October 10 Ankara attack is kept in the dark, the proposals to set up a commission to investigate the massacre are rejected by AKP votes. All this speaks a lot about the mindset that produced the secret witness whose groundless claims and fabricated stories are being presented as the alleged pretexts of Alp Altınörs’ arrest. We know this mindset all too well.
We strongly condemn the arrest of Alp Altınörs through secret witness testimony which has turned into nothing but a legal scandal.
The government wants to make it a crime to attend public funerals and to act in solidarity with our fellow citizens. We will never accept this.
The people will always occupy the central position in our democratic politics. We will continue our struggle until those who do politics in total disregard for the will of the people and who make unlawful use of the authorities vested in them by the people are brought to trial.
We expect an immediate rescindment of this unlawful and unjust arrest ruling and correction of this mistake.
Peoples’ Democratic Party
Central Executive Board
16th September, 2016