Thousands of citizens staged a sit-in protest on Friday when the Batman’s governorship refused to give permission for the Labor, Freedom and Democracy Bloc’s independent candidates to open their election campaign office.

The candidates Ayla Akat Ata and Bengi Yýldýz said, “We’re paying the price to sit in these parliamentary seats. Our people made a decision to carry this action out for freedom. We will continue to be here.”

Akat Ata said, “The values which made us inspire our propaganda. We also want to contribute to social peace and justice in Turkey. However, as we see: the government’s intolerance of Kurdish people flowing to their Newroz squares and later walking to the Solution Tents where they demand their civil rights, affects today’s election propaganda.”

Bengi Yýldýz remarked that “We when the election office opens, it is like this: We are up against tanks, tanks, police, and public officials,". He continued, “A short time before, we had a meeting with Minister Hüseyin Çelik. He said this: ‘We see the election processes as a democracy holiday, we want it like this.’ In fact, we can’t look at this as a holiday. There are nightsticks, tear gas and pressure against us. On the other side are the AKP’s candidates using all the state’s power and opportunities.”