Turkish government has appointed a trustee to the Municipality of Bismil district of Diyarbakır province where was under the administration of elected co-mayors from the pro-Kurdish Democratic Regions Party (DBP).
While the government has appointed the district governor, Turgay Gülenç, as a trustee to the Bismil Municipality, Diyarbakır Chief Prosecutor’s Office has issued a detention warrant for the elected co-Mayor of Bismil, Cemile Eminoğlu. Also, police searched the apartment of Eminoğlu, Bismil municipality building and the Eminoğlu’s office on the weekend.
Adding the Bismil Municipality, the number of pro-Kurdish DBP-governed municipalities to which trustees have been appointed has risen to 69 and 78 co-mayors from DBP have put behind the bars.
Moreover, a trustee appointed to the DBP-held municipality in Mersin’s Akdeniz district has dismissed 40 subcontracted employees. District Governor Hamdi Bilge Aktaş, who was assigned as trustee to Akdeniz Municipality in mid-December 2016 has fired 40 more employees under investigation against 500 municipal workers. Thus, the number of municipal workers fired from job in the municipality has risen to 58. In the meantime, the multilingual signboards at Neighborhood Houses in Akdeniz district, in Kurdish, Turkish and Arabic, have all been removed on the order of the trustee.
According to latest figures, Turkish government has arrested 12 pro-Kurdish Peoples’ HDP deputies, including the party’s co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, 1,473 members of HDP and pro-Kurdish Democratic Regions Party (DBP) and also has seized the administration of 63 municipalities since failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016.
The DBP won 103 municipalities in local elections which were held on 30 March 2014. However, with Turkey has stepped up political pressure on Kurdish politicians in recent months, the gov’t appointed trustees to the management of 69 municipalities, arrested a total of 78 Kurdish co-mayors.
Among the arrested party members, there are 132 local chairs of the party and 757 board members. Meanwhile, pro-Kurdish the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Parliamentary Group Chair, Ahmet Yıldırım, has claimed on Monday that some 9.000 HDP members have been detained and 2500 of them have been arrested in the last 1,5 years. Giving an interview to pro-Kurdish media, Yıldırım said that the attacks on his party have been intensified during the referendum process thanks to the AKP/MHP alliance.
