Statement from DEM Party Group Deputy Chair Koçyiğit! 'The trustee regime is an undeclared state of emergency'

Following the Interior Ministry's appointment of trustees to the DEM Party-run municipalities of Mardin, Batman, and Halfeti, DEM Party Group Deputy Chair Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit made statements. Koçyiğit announced that they would resist the blow dealt to democracy and that, as a party, they would not participate in any commission meetings this week.

Koçyiğit included the following statements in her speech:

For a very long time in this country, policies have been systematically applied to Kurds. The most important of these policies was the generalization of exception law. We generally saw this through the judiciary. We saw it in Independence Tribunals, State Security Courts, Specially Authorized Courts, and state of emergency (OHAL) practices. In other words, Kurds have actually been trying to be governed by an exception law for a long time. Today, this trustee regime is an undeclared state of emergency practice.

'THEY ACTIVATED THE TRUSTEE'

Because all the taps of corruption and plunder were turned off in the March 31 elections, and because the rent pipelines going to their own gangs were closed, they have activated the trustee today to seize the people's resources once again.

The trustee does not just destroy the people's resources. It is also a practice that destroys the region's language, culture, and local life. The trustee policy is a policy of rejecting and ignoring the Kurd.

We are the focus of the sole struggle that resists all these conspiracies. Because we speak out and object to all kinds of oppression, lawlessness, and usurpation of will, the AKP cannot establish the order it wants today. It cannot realize the regime it desires. That is why they have launched a new wave of attacks. By trying to destroy us politically, they actually want to establish the regime they want for themselves. They have turned the country into a country of trustees for their own march to power.

'A GREAT LAWLESSNESS'

Is it not Ahmet Türk who sat side by side with the Vice President? Has he become a terrorist now? We are talking about a great lawlessness. Within all this lawlessness, the peoples of Turkey must know this: as the DEM Party, we are resisting the trustees and the usurpation of will today just as we resisted yesterday, and we will continue to do so tomorrow.

We want to make this call. Today is a day for us all to resist together. From the far west of Turkey to the far east, everyone who speaks in favor of democracy and conscience in this country needs to come together, along with all political parties, NGOs, women's organizations, and legal organizations. We need to unite against this oppression. Because we know that if we do not resist this oppression today, the country will be dragged into great chaos.

In fact, the trustee practices have once again shown today that the government does not want a solution, that it feeds on lack of solutions rather than solutions, and that it feeds on war and violence rather than peace. While all the peoples of Turkey were eagerly waiting, glued to television programs morning and night, wondering who gave what message for peace and dialogue, we see that the possibility of peace is actually being destroyed once again by the government."