Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) party has made a statement condemning the attacks on Kurdish journalists.
In a raid at 1.30am this morning, the offices of Medya Haber and Stêrk TV were ransacked by the police. Simultaneously, journalists working for Mezopotamya Agency and Yeni Yaşam Newspaper were arrested in Istanbul and Ankara. The number of journalists arrested in Turkey has now reached nine.
French police also raided the Kurdish Community Centre in Paris, and several private homes. The Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s office has claimed that it carried out the raids at the request of the French authorities, who were reportedly investigating “terrorist financing”.
The DEM Party Central Executive Committee condemned the raids as “unjustified and unlawful,” adding, “it is shameful that Belgium has sacrificed human rights, democracy and freedom of the press to its negotiations with Turkey.”
“For years, every attack and operation against the Kurdish press has been an indication of preparations for a bigger and more comprehensive attack against the Kurdish people. It has been proven time and again that the efforts to silence the press, which is the voice of the Kurdish people, are intended to make the attacks which are to be carried out later invisible,” the committee warned.
In 2011, “most comprehensive detention and arrest operation in history against the Kurdish press” was carried out in the days prior to the Roboski massacre, the DEM Party committee said, as an example.
Furthermore, the Turkish state intends to make “regional and international powers” complicit in their “attack plans” against the Kurdish movement, the statement read.
The Committee members concluded with a clear message to the Turkish state: “The new policies of attack and massacre you are preparing and your efforts to silence the Kurdish press will do nothing but cause Turkey to lose.”
DEM Party Central Executive Committee Statement in full:
‘Crackdown on Free Press is the beginning of a new attack concept’
At midnight and in the morning, simultaneous operations and attacks were carried out against the Free Press in Istanbul, Ankara and Belgium. In Ankara and Istanbul, seven journalists working for Mezopotamya Agency and Yeni Yaşam Newspaper were detained. Belgian police also raided Medya Haber and Stêrk TV without any justification. During the raid which lasted for hours, all official and legal documents were seized. First of all, we condemn these unjust, unlawful and piratical attacks against the Free Press.
For years, every attack and operation against the Kurdish press has been an indication of preparations for a bigger and more comprehensive attack against the Kurdish people. It has been proven time and again that the efforts to silence the press, which is the voice of the Kurdish people, are intended to make the attacks which are to be carried out later invisible. On 21 December 2011, only seven days after the most comprehensive detention and arrest operation in history against the Kurdish press, the Roboski Massacre was carried out by warplanes. It is not in vain that these operations were carried out against the Kurdish press from inside and outside at a time when the [Justice and Development Party-Nationalist Movement Party] AKP-MHP government was planning a comprehensive attack on the Kurdish people, and Erdoğan was negotiating with the Iraqi government years later. Unfortunately, Turkey wants regional and international powers… to be made a part of these attack plans.
On the other hand, it is shameful that Belgium has sacrificed human rights, democracy and freedom of the press to its negotiations with Turkey. Unfortunately, European countries have once again shown that they can bargain all kinds of humanitarian values when their interests are at stake, and that they can sell these values to oppressive authoritarian governments and become their backers. The fact that this attack was carried out on 22 April Kurdish Journalism Day is also an indication of the denialist and hostile attitude.
We warn the government, based on denial and war policies: Do not sell Turkey’s resources to regional and international powers through Kurdish hostility. All of the ways and methods you have tried are bankrupt, none of them have yielded any results, nor will they ever do so. The new policies of attack and massacre you are preparing and your efforts to silence the Kurdish press will do nothing but cause Turkey to lose. Considering the messages of “normalisation, solution, democratisation” given by the Turkish society and the Kurdish people with the 31 March election results, give up this attack and destruction mindset. As it has been proven many times in history, anyone who insists on non-solution cannot escape the same frustration and fate.
We call on everyone who does not want Turkey to be dragged into a new adventure, insolvency, crisis and chaos to be sensitive to these attacks. We call for the immediate cessation of these attacks and once again express our solidarity with the free opposition press.
DEM Party Central Executive Committee
23 April 2024
