AKEL strongly condemns the arrests of leading members of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in Turkey, including those of its two Co-Presidents, Selahattin Demirtaş in Diyarbakir and Figen Yüksekdağ in Ankara.

So far a total of 14 HDP Members of Parliament have been arrested, while another 2 MP’s, who are currently abroad, are facing prosecution. Several other MP’s faced police raids and interrogations. During the arrests which were carried out last night key social networks in Turkey were severely restricted so that news and information on the developments could not be transmitted immediately. The whole operation evidently confirms the undemocratic and aggressive political climate that is continually being aggravated by the Erdogan government’s actions against the opposition voices in the country.

This development is the culmination of a process of persecutions and victimization of militants and leading officials of HDP, representatives of the Kurds of Turkey, academics, journalists, left activists and militants all over the country. In recent years these developments have been preceded by growing attacks against the Kurdish regions of Turkey, the violation of human rights and undemocratic machinations on the part of the Turkish state. These developments are not unrelated to the democratic growth in the electoral percentages and representation of HDP in recent years, to the attempts to impose Erdogan’s prevalence after the coup d’état at all levels, but also to the powerful presence of the Kurds of Syria with regards the outcome of the Syrian civil war.

AKEL once again expresses its solidarity with the HDP and urges Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots to denounce the new anti-democratic development in Turkey at a local and international level. AKEL through its representatives in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), in which the deputies of HDP ARE also participants, as well as in the European Parliament, will denounce and demand, together with the rest of the parties with which it is cooperating, an immediate end to the peAKEL strongly condemns the arrest of the HDP leaders in Turkey

Statement by Vera Polycarpou, Head of the International Relations and European Affairs Bureau and member of the C.C. of AK