Representatives from Austrian political parties were in Turkey for the NATO Parliamentarians Assembly (NATOPA) and planned a press statement in front of the Silivri Prison they visited for the arrested HDP MPs, but were stopped by the gendarmerie.

The committee was removed from the prison area, and they read the press statement on the highway nearby accompanied by HDP Amed MP Ziya Pir and a team from Austrian state television ORF.

The Ministry of Justice refused audience with Selahattin Demirtaş who is kept in Edirne Type F Prison to the parliamentarians, who emphasized that Turkey was moving away from democracy and heading towards dictatorship under Erdoğan’s rule.

PILZ: TURKEY IS NOT A COUNTRY TO COME TO!

Greens MP Peter Pilz said: “These people are serving time for their ideas. They are serving time just because they wanted peace. They were imprisoned for speaking their minds. It should be just the opposite, a parliamentarian’s job is to say what they think. We protest these arbitrary practices. Turkey is not a country you can just come to anymore. You can’t come to this country and not speak of the state of the political prisoners.”

LOPATKA: WE WILL MAKE OUR VOICE HEARD IN ANKARA

ÖVP Party MP Reinhold Lopatka said Turkey should be faced with sanctions, including the halting of EU accession negotiations. Lopatka said, “Over here is Silivri, over there is Istanbul, but they can’t even tolerate us taking one photograph with our phones here. We will write our reports after we leave here and present the reports in the parliament. The Austria state television is also here, we will make our voice heard in Europe as well.”

FUCHS: THERE MUST BE SANCTIONS

Hubert Fuchs from FPÖ Party said they had special efforts about Turkey in the Austrian parliament and that they drafted reports so Turkey face sanctions. Fuchs said: “We took the lead, I hope other European parliamentarians take us as an example.”