The Justice and Human Rights Commission of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has filed criminal complaints with the public prosecution offices in several Kurdish provinces concerning the destruction campaign targeting the graves of fallen Kurdish fighters.

In its criminal complaints, the HDP refers to the constitution and the Turkish penal code, stating that "these inhuman attacks, which degrade social values, must be stopped immediately and the perpetrators punished.

In Hakkari, Van, Muş, Amed (Diyarbakir), Bingöl and Şırnak, Turkish security forces systematically use brute force against graves of guerrillas. Entire cemeteries have been devastated, gravestones smashed. The destruction of guerrilla graves has been a long-standing practice of the Turkish state, but has recently taken on an even more systematic dimension. The tens of thousands of martyrs of the Kurdish liberation movement are intended to be erased from the social memory.

The Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) pointed out in a statement published last week that the desecration of guerrilla graves is not motivated by sadistic motives, but has a political aim: to make the Kurds renounce their language, culture and freedom.

HDP MP Leyla Güven expressed similar sentiments in an ANF interview: "This is a message to the people: "We will not tolerate you, dead or alive. But with trauma comes rage.”

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