A delegation consisting of the executives of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) visited the neighborhood of Kazancı (Haciya Kurdan) in the Bismil district of Amed. The neighborhood had the electricity cut off by Dicle Electricity Distribution Inc. (DEDAŞ). The delegation included DEM Party Amed MP Berdan Öztürk, DEM Party Amed Provincial co-chairs Gülşen Özer and Abbas Şahin, Bismil municipality co-chair Mizgin Ekin, and DEM Party provincial and district executives.

'DEDAŞ is oppressing people'

DEM Party Amed Provincial co-chair Abbas Şahin made a statement and said: "The policies implemented by the state in Kurdistan have been implemented through the AKP-MHP for the last few years. After the privatization of electricity distribution, which is a public service, we see that DEDAŞ, which should serve people, has become a structure that oppresses people. There were heart patients, high blood pressure patients and patients on dialysis in our neighborhood with a population of 2,000-3,000. Yet electricity was cut off at 03:00 at night in order to put pressure on people. We condemn this and will follow up on this."

Sahin said that electricity is of vital importance not only for the patients in the neighborhood but also for the people who make a living from farming, and added: "The fact that there is no water in connection with electricity is actually a human tragedy. We are protesting here the insensitivity of the authorities. We will not allow institutions that should serve the people with the money of the people to actually oppress them. We will expose this everywhere. The government has left our village without electricity and water by using DEDAŞ as a means of threat."

DEM Party Amed MP Berdan Öztürk said that DEDAŞ’s oppression continues and that it gets this power from the AKP-MHP government. "They know that the people living here earn their living by farming. Approximately 20 thousand acres of cultivated cotton fields have been left without water. The dirty politics of the AKP-MHP government is being carried out by DEDAŞ. This is not acceptable. You have to provide equal service for every citizen. There are people living here who are connected to machines. We won’t allow this to happen."