Öztürk Türkdoğan, co-chair of the Human Rights Organization, was arrested in the early hours of the morning in Ankara. Various HDP executives also taken into custody.
The co-chairman of the Human Rights Organization (IHD), Öztürk Türkdoğan was taken into custody in the early morning hours.
In the political operation carried out in the morning there was a number of other people arrested, the spokeswoman for the Women’s Council of the Democratic Party of the Peoples (HDP) in Ankara, Zeyno Bayramoğlu, party council member Ali Özkan, the co-chairman of the HDP association of the Eskişehir province, Şükriye Ercan, and two other people, Hüseyin Gevher and Betül Koca, were arrested.
Arrests targeting the HDP have become part of everyday life under the AKP / MHP regime, but the attack on the IHD represents a new step further into the criminalisation of all voices defending truth. Interior Minister Soylu had previously openly threatened the IHD in a speech.
IHD targeted for criticism of Gare invasion
On 15 February 2021, the IHD held a press conference on the deaths of the 13 soldiers, police officers and secret service employees captured by the guerrillas. The prisoners of war had apparently been killed by bombing by the Turkish military for several days. The IHD had sharply condemned the government’s actions and demanded the establishment of a committee of inquiry.
One day later, on 16 February, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu aggressively attacked the IHD and leading IHD representatives in a parliamentary declaration.