The co-mayor of Hakkari, Viyan Tekçe, has been sentenced to two years and three months in prison for participating in protests against the state appointment of a trustee in her place. The verdict was handed down last week by the competent court, the 30-year-old mayor said on Friday. According to the indictment, the charges were “participation in an unauthorized assembly” and “insult of a public official” – specifically by shouting the slogan “The trustee is a thief.”

The ruling is related to protests last June, when the Turkish Interior Ministry dismissed the democratically elected municipal administration of Hakkari and replaced it with a state-appointed trustee.

Viyan Tekçe, who ran for the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), sharply criticized the ruling and called it a politically motivated attempt at intimidation: “The governor, who was appointed as a trustee, had us sued for calling him a thief. We had publicly documented that millions from the city budget had been funneled into the AKP's election campaign under the previous trustee administration."

Tekçe described the trustee administration as a continuation of repressive state policy against Kurdish municipalities: “Previous forms such as the state of emergency, special administrative regions, or the so-called reform plan for the east—today it is called trusteeship. This practice aims to disenfranchise the Kurdish population and, in particular, to weaken democratic women's structures.”

Democratically elected but unlawfully deposed

Viyan Tekçe and her colleague Mehmet Sıddık Akış were elected as co-mayors of Hakkari in the local elections on March 31, 2024, despite massive attempts at fraud and the deployment of thousands of soldiers as “ghost voters,” with almost 49 percent of the vote. Tekçe was officially considered deputy mayor, while Akış received the certificate of appointment. The latter was removed from office just two months after the election on suspicion of terrorism and sentenced to almost 20 years in prison on the same charges. Since then, Governor Ali Çelik has been sitting in his place in City Hall, despite the city council's appointment of Viyan Tekçe as interim mayor.

The appointment of a trustee in the place of the elected co-mayors led to several days of protests in the city. Tekçe has now been convicted for her participation in these demonstrations. “I am the elected mayor. Of course, I will stand by the people when their democratic will is trampled underfoot,” she said. The protests, she said, were a legitimate means of taking a stand against the reversal of the voters' will.

In response to the ruling, Tekçe announced that she would continue her resistance through political channels: “What is happening here is an attempt to silence the Kurdish language, culture, and identity through local politics. But our fight against denial and assimilation will continue with democratic and legitimate means. We will defend the rights of the elected representatives until the end.”