Kurdish artist Hakan Yaşar announced that he will donate the proceeds of a painting he is auctioning to the “Our Treasure is Our People” fundraising campaign for Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
The HDP on Thursday launched a fundraising campaign for its electoral campaign, after the Constitutional Court ruled to block its Treasury accounts.
Bids for the painting, which Yaşar put up for auction with a base price of $6,000 on Thursday, had reached $7,500 on Sunday. The painting will remain in the auction until 8 pm on 1 February.
The painter, who has been living in Norway for over 30 years, chose this particular work to donate to the fundraiser because Başak Demirtaş, the wife of the HDP’s jailed former co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş, had admired the painting when she saw it at an exhibition in Turkey’s south-eastern province of Diyarbakır (Amed).
“I didn’t get the chance to gift the painting to her. So let it be a little support for the HDP,” Yaşar said.
Diyarbakır-based music band Koma Ma also announced on Sunday that they will take to the stage at Diyarbakir City Theatre on 1 February in support of the campaign. They will donate the income from the concert to the HDP.
There has been mass participation in the HDP’s fundraising campaign since it started, and some of the comments accompanying the donations are, “The HDP is the people, the people are here”, “We shall win together”, and “Solidarity keeps us alive”, Mezopotamya Agency reported.
