Press notice by our Vice Co-Chair Mr. Hişyar Özsoy.
The deputy chair of HDP Parliamentary Group, Ms. Çağlar Demirel (MP for Diyarbakır), and HDP Women’s Assembly spokesperson,Ms. Besime Konca (MP for Siirt), were detained in Ankara around midnight on 12 December 2016 and sent to Diyarbakır and Batman, respectively.
Ms Konca was at first released with the condition of judicial control. However, she was detained again a few hours after her release while she was in Diyarbakır to follow the situation of Ms. Caglar Demirel. Shortly before her detention for the second time,Ms Konca informed our lawyers that she was physically harassed during the detention process: she was handcuffed, forced to listen to nationalist anthems, and was told"You belong either to prison or to a grave"by the police all the way to Batman. Ms. Konca said she had marks of handcuffs on her wrists.On December 13, both Ms. Demirel and Ms. Konca were arrested and sent to prison in Kandıra, Kocaeli, where our Co-chair Ms. Figen Yüksekdağ and several other MPs and co-mayors are also imprisoned.
On December 14, HDP MP for Dersim (Tunceli), Mr Alican Onlu, was detained in Ankara. He was released the next day.
Since November 4, seventeen of HDP MPs have been detained and 12 of them, including our co-chairs Mr Selahattin Demirtaş and Ms Figen Yüksekdağ and deputy chair of HDP parliamentary group Mr İdris Baluken, have been imprisoned.With the arrest of Ms. Demirel, HDP parliamentary group is left without a chair or deputy chair.
There are now seven woman MPs and several woman co-mayors in prison. It is thanks to the HDP’s gender politics that women have increased their political representation both in the parliament and local administrations. However, with the arrest of our deputies and co-mayors, women are deprived of their rightfully won positions.(The Erdoğan regime has also targeted women's civil society organizations. For example, the Free Women's Congress (KJA) was banned by a decree, and its spokeswoman AylaAkat Ata, a former Kurdish MP, was arrested and sent to Kandıra prison.)
The unlawful repression of the political opposition is wiping out the already limited democratic standards in the country. The government’s attacks on women’s struggle, rights, and political representation mark the core of this politics of repression.
Hişyar Özsoy
Deputy Co-chair of HDP Responsible For Foreign Affairs
Member of Parliament
15 December 2016