HDP continues the election campaign in Van with village visits. Co-mayoral candidates for the Saray district Caziye Duman and Sahabettin Bilmez visited a mourning house in the Zincirkiran village as part of the campaign and introduced themselves.

The mourning house was raided by the gendarmerie, who asked the people to clear the premises citing District Governor M. Halis Aydin’s orders to “vacate the premises as there can be no politics in a mourning house”. The villagers said the mourning house belongs to them and they will not be leaving.

The gendarmerie spoke with the District Governor again after this response, and then threatened to attack unless the house was vacated. Special operations units were brought in and they surrounded the mourning house. Later the gendarmerie forces forcibly vacated the locale.

DUMAN: THE AKP USES MOSQUES FOR PROPAGANDA

Saray district co-mayoral candidate Caziye Duman spoke about the issue and said the mourning houses are places built by the people using their own resources. Adding that AKP candidates use mosques for their own propaganda, but the HDP was barred from campaigning in a private building that belongs to the people, Duman said:

“We organized a meeting with the people as part of our election campaign to promote ourselves. The District Governor ordered the gendarmerie, citing that there can be no meetings in the mourning house. They make propaganda in mosques, but we were attacked in a mourning house. The villagers are protesting this.”

The co-mayoral candidates and the villagers then continued with the election campaign despite gendarmerie presence.