Amed: Resistance will continue until the trustees are sent back

The demonstration launched in Amed to reclaim the usurped municipality continues since August 19.

On August 19 the AKP regime seized the metropolitan municipalities of Amed (Diyarbakır), Van and Mardin by removing the democratically elected co-mayors and appointing trustees in their place. In tandem with the operation against three municipalities, over 400 people were taken into custody as a result of house raids in dozens of cities. Protest demonstrations have continued in three cities since.

The sit-in action launched in Amed to reclaim the municipality continued on day 17. Gathering on the Lise Avenue leading to the municipality building, the crowd chanted “Amed is ours”, “We will resist to victory” and “Shoulder to shoulder against trustees”.

The action was joined by members of HDP provincial and district branches, Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP), HDP deputies Dersim Dağ, Feleknas Uca, Semra Güzel, Hişyar Özsoy, Musa Farısoğulları, Peace Mothers Assembly, Free Women’s Movement (TJA), Amed co-mayor Selçuk Mızraklı, co-mayors of districts of Amed and people of the city.

Speaking here, HDP Amed MP Hişyar Özsoy said the following; “HDP is a party which 6 million people have voted for. Police keeps record of every single person who enters our offices. From time to time, even deputies are denied permission to enter the office, let alone members of the party. They shouldn’t test our patience.”

Speaking after, HDP Women’s Assembly Spokesperson Dilan Dirayet Taşdemir said; “These are not trustees, but governors of colonialism. When trustees were first appointed to our municipalities in 2016, they started to execute assimilation, removing Kurdish signboards and closing Kurdish kindergartens. We know that they are afraid of us because social change and equality prevail here, something non-existent in the one-man regime. One of the excuses put forward in the latest appointment of trustees was the co-presidency system, which means an equal society and is the name of our freedom. AKP has nurtured enmity towards women for 17 years, a period with an extravagant increase in the rate of femicide. AKP is telling women to obey, to sit home and not to rebel. It wants to give a message to women over the increasing femicide but women are rising up and rebelling. We will increase the rebellion of women, and our struggle until the trustee is sent back.”