The resistance against the seizure of the Mardin Metropolitan Municipality and replacement of democratically elected co-mayors by a trustee on 4 November continues. The Art for Freedom Initiative visited the city on Thursday and made a statement in front of the municipality in protest at the appointment of a trustee in the place of the ousted mayors.

The statement was read by artist Ayşe Çetinbaş on behalf of the Initiative.

Çetinbaş drew attention to the violation of the right to vote by the trustee policies that started in 2016. Emphasising that democratic rights are ignored, Çetinbaş said, “As the Art for Freedom Initiative, we do not accept the coups that try to crush local governments, Kurdish people, rights defenders and dissidents by systematising trustees, and the ignoring of the most basic rights and freedoms through methods such as censorship, bans and trustees.”

Çetinbaş said that they would be everywhere from Batman to Halfeti, from Mardin to Esenyurt and Hakkari, where the municipalities have been usurped by the government.

Speaking after, Devrim Demir, Co-Mayor of Mardin Metropolitan Municipality, said that the trustees first targeted women and continued: “In the period of the past 8 years, when Kurdish municipalities were usurped, we have seen that the attack was directed against the field of culture and arts more than anything else. In 8 years, not a single concert or a single festival was organised in these lands. The trustee system has always been hostile to the culture and art of the peoples, as well as to the different identities of these lands.”