Speaking before a massive crowd at Istanbul’s 2025 Newroz celebration on Monday, Tuncer Bakırhan, co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party, used his platform to denounce the government’s escalating repression against democratic forces and to renew calls for peace based on Abdullah Öcalan’s vision for a democratic solution to the Kurdish question.
Bakırhan’s speech followed two major political developments. On 27 February, Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan’s representative delegation shared a message calling for a democratic societal solution to the Kurdish issue—his first message in nearly four years of total isolation in İmralı Prison. He stressed the need for dialogue and democratic reform as the only viable route to peace in Turkey. Then, on 19 March, Istanbul’s elected mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was arrested, a move widely condemned as a judicial coup d’etat against democratic opposition.
Bakırhan positioned both developments as pivotal. “This is not a message limited to the Kurdish community,” he said of Öcalan’s call. “It speaks to the entire country—women, workers, youth, pensioners and the oppressed.” Bakırhan insisted it should be seen as a unifying political roadmap to resolve long-standing issues of inequality and repression in Turkey.
Of İmamoğlu’s arrest, Bakırhan said:
“The will of sixteen million people cannot be imprisoned.” He stated that the DEM Party stands in full solidarity with İmamoğlu and the Republican People’s Party (CHP), remarking that attacks on one section of democratic opposition are attacks on all. “We know this playbook too well,” he said, referring to the long use of the judiciary against the Kurdish movement.
Bakırhan linked İmamoğlu’s detention to a longer trajectory of what he termed “civilian coups,” referring to the removal and imprisonment of democratically elected Kurdish representatives such as Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ “This is the same playbook. Now, it is being used against CHP politicians.”
He also condemned the state’s policy of appointing government trustees to replace elected mayors in Kurdish-majority municipalities. He said:
“These are not isolated decisions. They are part of a systemic effort to suppress political will and erase the agency of entire communities”
Bakırhan warned that Turkey’s international standing is rapidly deteriorating due to authoritarian practices. “The cost of these policies is clear: economic collapse, diplomatic isolation and increasing unrest. The world is looking on at a country that silences its own electorate.”
Reiterating his party’s position, Bakırhan urged the Turkish government to respond constructively to Öcalan’s call and avoid squandering the opportunity through repression. “This is not merely symbolic,” he said. “It is a historic opening—a path toward reconciliation and a peaceful, democratic Turkey. But it requires courage, not conspiracies.”
