On Friday, November 22nd, the AKP-MHP regime usurped the municipality of Dersim under the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) by appointing a trustee in the place of the democratically elected co-mayors, Cevdet Konak and Birsen Orhan. Both mayors were then removed from office and replaced by a trustee, Tunceli Governor Bülent Tekbıyıkoğlu, following an instruction from the Ministry of Interior. The reason given for the usurpation is a not yet legally binding prison sentence against Dersim co-mayor Cevdet Konak for alleged membership of a ‘terrorist organisation’.

Co-mayor Birsen Orhan has been placed under house arrest and banned from leaving the country. The Kurdish politician for the DEM Party is accused of inciting the people and insulting public officials, as her lawyers announced after the decision of a court of emergency on Sunday evening.

Orhan went to the police headquarters on Sunday to give a statement as an accused. She was first referred to a court, then to Tunceli Criminal Judicature of Peace on Duty with a demand for her arrest on the charges of ‘inciting people to hatred and hostility’ and ‘insulting a public officer’. After testifying to the judge, she was released in the evening on condition of judicial control and placed under house arrest with a ban on leaving the country. The accusations against Birsen Orhan relate to statements she made against the appointment of a trustee to Dersim Municipality.

Birsen Orhan had called the trustee appointment ‘occupation’ at a protest rally and called the governor an ‘instrument of occupation’. She criticised the court ruling against Konak as politically motivated and the result of a politicised judiciary that plays into the hands of the AKP government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in his campaign against his opponents. According to her lawyers, it is still unclear whether and when charges will be filed.

On Friday, the mayor of the CHP-governed district of Ovacık, Mustafa Sarıgül, was dismissed along with Cevdet Konak and replaced by an AKP official. Sarıgül was on trial in the same case as Konak and, like his counterpart, was sentenced to more than six years in prison. The verdict in the trial, which has been going on for ten years, was unexpected on Wednesday, with the defendants not being given any opportunity to defend themselves. The DEM Party and the CHP accuse Erdoğan of having predetermined the verdict.

With the depositions in Dersim, the number of municipalities usurped in Turkey since October has risen to seven. The DEM Party mayors of the cities of Batman, Mardin and Halfeti and the CHP mayor of Esenyurt, the most populous district of Istanbul, had been removed from office at the beginning of November and the end of October, and their colleague in Hakkari as early as June, also on charges of alleged ‘terrorism’.