Repudiation of new wave of anti-democratic repression in Turkey
Communiqué
In the early hours of yesterday morning, the government of Turkey removed the newly elected mayors of the three main Kurdish cities in the south-east of the country, all belonging to the People's Democratic Party which is the third political force nationally. More than five hundred people were arrested in related police operations and today, despite continued repression and new arrests, protests continue in the streets demanding respect for people´s democratic rights.
We repudiate these flagrant violations of human rights and call on the government of President Erdoğan to reverse this repressive escalation against the Kurdish people, in particular, and the country's minorities in general.
We also call on the international community, European and international human rights institutions, the governments and companies that continue to support the Turkish government despite its increasingly authoritarian and violent actions against Turkey's own population as well as that of neighbouring countries, to assume their obligations to contribute to full respect for human rights.
Just three months ago, the Turkish government seemed ready to take another path, by allowing lawyers and relatives - who have been prevented for years - to visit the imprisoned Kurdish leader, Abdullah Öcalan, in the context of a massive wave of hunger strikes and a huge popular mobilisation in Turkey and around the world. We accompanied in solidarity with visits and messages, including the pronouncement of 53 Nobel Prize Laureates, this demand for an end to the aggravated isolation of Öcalan and, by extension, of the Kurdish people and minorities in Turkey.
Today more than ever, we reiterate the call to the government of Turkey to put an end to isolation and repression and to recognize that the path of peace, of the greatness of nations, is built on the basis of respect and inclusion. We call on the popular organizations of our country and the world, political, social, trade union, religious and human rights organizations, to also raise their voices of condemnation and to strengthen ties of solidarity so as to prevent a new genocide in Turkey, as the deputies Ebru Günay and Garó Paylan, members of the Turkish National Assembly, have been alerting in their current visit to South America.
Buenos Aires, August 20, 2019
Dialogue 2000-Jubilee South Argentina
Servicio Paz y Justicia Argentina
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Laureate
Nora Cortiñas and Mirta Baravalle, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo-Founders´ Line
Beverly Keene, Coordinator Dialogue 2000