Prime Minister's visit put Diyarbakýr under siege
Prime Minister's visit put Diyarbakýr under siege
Diyarbakýr today is a city under siege. Incredible as it may seems, but the election rally by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan scheduled to begin at 2pm has meant that since last night the city has got under heavy security. And yes, it is quite normal that, coming the PM into town, security is higher. The problem is that walking through the streets early this morning, witnesses said it was like walking through a war city. Nobody around, like when there is a curfew. Scores of armed policemen, armored vehicles, a sense of a city taken hostage. All of this because the Prime Minister has to make his election speech.
Security measures include heavy searches the few people going to work are subjected to. And of course the ban, issued by the authorities last night, of any other initiative.
The citizens of Diyarbakýr have responded as they had announced: shops are closed, shutters are down.
The People's Initiative has called on the people not to join the rally. Indeed yesterday the Labor, Democracy and Freedom Block had organized a very crowded tour of the city. A long convoy of cars blowing horns has attracted hundreds of supporters.
The Prime Minister is scheduled to speak at around 2.30pm local time.
Yesterday it was the turn of opposition leader to speak in Diyarbakýr.
CHP (Republican People's Party) president Kemal Kýlýçdaroðlu was not met by shops closed and shutters down as would be the PM. The Kurdish people listened to what the CHP had to say without attaching too much to it.
Kýlýçdaroðlu following on the line he had inaugurated at the beginning of his election campaign, said that the biggest separatist in the country is indeed the Prime Minister.
Referring to the criticism he received for suggesting sovereignty for local authorities, the CHP leader said he was “not trying to separate Turkey, and that everyone can live in this beautiful land in peace.”
Indeed, the CHP leader answered Erdoðan’s critical claim that he did not have Turkish flags up during his election rallies, by saying: “It is wrong to conduct politics over flags. That is separatist. Erdoðan is thus the biggest separatist.”
Referring to Erdoðan’s promise to build a new prison in Diyarbakýr, Kýlýçdaroðlu said he would build a new factory instead, and turn the old prison into a museum. “We will face our past, and share our pains in order to reach freedom and democracy,” the CHP chief said.
The AKP said it had removed the state of emergency in the region, but that is not the case, Kýlýçdaroðlu said. “There is a state of emergency in all of Turkey,” he said. “Under the rule of the AKP, the number of those in prison rose from 28,000 in 2005 to 52,000 in 2009. In the first six months of 2010, 596 people were put on trial for expressing their thoughts, with a projected [total] sentence of 1,219 years.”
“How could this happen in 21st-century Turkey?” the CHP chief asked. “How can such a government be democratic?”
Security measures include heavy searches the few people going to work are subjected to. And of course the ban, issued by the authorities last night, of any other initiative.
The citizens of Diyarbakýr have responded as they had announced: shops are closed, shutters are down.
The People's Initiative has called on the people not to join the rally. Indeed yesterday the Labor, Democracy and Freedom Block had organized a very crowded tour of the city. A long convoy of cars blowing horns has attracted hundreds of supporters.
The Prime Minister is scheduled to speak at around 2.30pm local time.
Yesterday it was the turn of opposition leader to speak in Diyarbakýr.
CHP (Republican People's Party) president Kemal Kýlýçdaroðlu was not met by shops closed and shutters down as would be the PM. The Kurdish people listened to what the CHP had to say without attaching too much to it.
Kýlýçdaroðlu following on the line he had inaugurated at the beginning of his election campaign, said that the biggest separatist in the country is indeed the Prime Minister.
Referring to the criticism he received for suggesting sovereignty for local authorities, the CHP leader said he was “not trying to separate Turkey, and that everyone can live in this beautiful land in peace.”
Indeed, the CHP leader answered Erdoðan’s critical claim that he did not have Turkish flags up during his election rallies, by saying: “It is wrong to conduct politics over flags. That is separatist. Erdoðan is thus the biggest separatist.”
Referring to Erdoðan’s promise to build a new prison in Diyarbakýr, Kýlýçdaroðlu said he would build a new factory instead, and turn the old prison into a museum. “We will face our past, and share our pains in order to reach freedom and democracy,” the CHP chief said.
The AKP said it had removed the state of emergency in the region, but that is not the case, Kýlýçdaroðlu said. “There is a state of emergency in all of Turkey,” he said. “Under the rule of the AKP, the number of those in prison rose from 28,000 in 2005 to 52,000 in 2009. In the first six months of 2010, 596 people were put on trial for expressing their thoughts, with a projected [total] sentence of 1,219 years.”
“How could this happen in 21st-century Turkey?” the CHP chief asked. “How can such a government be democratic?”
