The Turkish state continues its campaign of extermination against the political and civic organization of the democratic Kurdish opposition. Four people have been arrested in Doğubayatız, including leading members of the HDP and DBP.
The AKP regime's judiciary continues to tighten the repressive screw as part of its crackdown on Kurdish political and civic organizing. Four people were jailed in Doğubayatız district of Ağrı on Monday, including leading members of the HDP and its sister party DBP. The charge against them is "membership in a terrorist organization."
The people involved are politician Gönül Öztürk, who is co-chair of the HDP Doğubayatız organization, former board member Bahattin Öztürk, DBP politician Abdullah Ekelik, and a 72-year-old man named Mustafa Taşdemir. They were all detained last Friday during raids by the Turkish police's counterterrorism unit and were in custody until they were transferred to court. It is still unclear what specific charges are at issue in the trial. After the hearing, the arrestees were transferred to the L-type prison in Patnos district.
Abdullah Ekelik co-chaired the HDP's gender-parity dual leadership in Doğubayatız until the beginning of the year. In February, he was elected to the DBP's party council. Ekelik is also one of two people who saved Kurdish journalist Aziz Oruç from freezing to death in late 2019. Oruç had been trying to flee to Europe at the time and had been abandoned in the Turkish border area by Iranian security forces, barefoot and dressed only in his underwear. Ekelik and another local politician, who rescued the journalist from no man's land, ended up in temporary custody at the time.
