Esenyurt message from Özgür Özel: 'We will not withdraw our hand'

CHP Chairman Özgür Özel made statements at the CHP TBMM Group Work and Evaluation Meeting.

Highlights from Özel's statements are as follows:

Hello to all of you with a heavy agenda. We are holding our parliamentary group meeting, which we previously announced we would hold in Antalya, in Istanbul due to the undemocratic and unlawful attacks directed at our Esenyurt Municipality.

WE ARE IN ISTANBUL FOR 3 DAYS

We are in Istanbul for 3 days with all our deputies. We continue to work. We will hold suggestions and discussions in a closed group session to state the determination of our group.

WE WILL NOT WITHDRAW OUR HAND FROM ESENYURT

We are determined not to withdraw our hand from Esenyurt, all together, until we repel the coup against the will of the people of Esenyurt to vote and until we turn back empty-handed the hand that intends to reach out to the will of Istanbul and Turkey to vote.

Our Mayor applied 7 months ago and said, 'I want to be a candidate from my party in Esenyurt.'

The state gave Ahmet Özer a clearance certificate. It said, 'As of now, you can be Mayor.' The state said, 'I vouch that he is not a terrorist.' The people of Esenyurt also elected Ahmet Özer as mayor.

The candidate shown by Erdoğan received half the votes of Ahmet Özer.

Now, there is Esenyurt, which has been brought to this state by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his appointees, and opposite it, there is Ekrem İmamoğlu, who hosted us here a moment ago, who started his municipal career and reached these days, and against whom the AKP has never been able to win an election, and in his person, there is clean, honest, transparent CHP municipalism. That is why we are here today.

RESPONSE TO THE MINISTER OF INTERIOR

While there were so many deputy governors, they made a conveniently chosen district governor a deputy governor for one day and prepared him for Esenyurt before the court had even made its decision. You appoint a district governor as a deputy governor by decree and prepare him as a trustee there.

I have no words for the Minister of Interior, who claims this is a state of law, or for the Minister of Justice, who says, 'The Republic of Turkey is a state of law, its judiciary is independent.' You are all those who take on the roles assigned to you in the same malicious game.

-Ahmet Özer would come to testify if you called him with a phone call. A locksmith, a battering ram... The lady was scared, wondering if there was a thief. They pushed the woman, shoved her against the wall. She says, 'Let me wake up Mr. Ahmet,' they say, 'We will wake him up.' This procedure is apparently only done if there is a possibility of a suicide bomber or a bomb trap in the house being entered.

RESPONSE TO THE LAWSUIT FROM ERDOĞAN

AKP President Erdoğan filed a lawsuit for 1 million TL in compensation against CHP leader Özgür Özel and Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu. The statements made at the trustee rally held in Esenyurt were cited as the reason.

Making statements on the subject, Özgür Özel said, "I really thought that Mr. Erdoğan not filing a compensation lawsuit against me, and me not filing one against him, from November 5th of last year to November 5th of this year, that is, during my chairmanship, would be an important step, but he could not wait until November 5th."

Highlights from Özel's speech are as follows:

"He pretends to have heard an insult without hearing one, extracts an insult from yesterday's speech, and tries to derive a sense of victimization for himself as if he were not the one doing it, and as if the victims were not Esenyurt and those who voted for the CHP candidate. It is a tactical move. We have seen such tactical moves from Erdoğan many times.

We have accused him of being a coup plotter, we have accused him of being a member of a terrorist organization. If you look back 10 years and make Ahmet Özer a terrorist for talking to a member of a terrorist organization in his phone conversations 10 years ago, then in your group, let alone talking on the phone with Fethullah Gülen or the Gülenists, those who spooned 'maklube' from the same tray would probably not find the number to form a group if they were not deputies.

When I say this, you ask, 'Did you call us terrorists?' Well, I didn't call you terrorists; I said if we applied your definition of terrorism to you, they would call you terrorists too. It is really not an understandable issue to not understand this and attempt to manage perception. As I said this morning, if Mr. Erdoğan's capacity were in Hitler and his team—no harm in a simile—they would return to Berlin while the Russian army was entering, and they would run to those they kept in concentration camps and say, 'Today is a day of unity and solidarity, we are all in the same boat.' My brother, when you hold the power, you apply enemy law; when you lose the power or see a risk, you turn around and say, 'Come on, let's all be Turkey.' There is no sincerity here.

“WE TOOK NOTES ONE BY ONE”

Regarding the question about the meetings held by his party's TBMM Group, Özel said the following:

“Our friends from all opinions expressed that the day was very productive. The most common consensus of the day was this: It was a day with very high-quality, very level-headed, very good discussions that benefited all of us and broadened our horizons. Of course, there were criticisms of me and our friends, and we had criticisms, but none of these were destructive; they were constructive criticisms. The emphasis most made was on the importance given to the unity and solidarity of the group, and that a very important task falls to the Republican People's Party group in this period. In this respect, there was a consensus that we must fight together, as one and whole. We, of course, took notes on the criticisms, directions, and suggestions on technical issues one by one. That is why this meeting is held anyway. But if you ask, 'Can you tell us one by one?', then we would have opened the meeting to the press; there is a reason, a justified reason, for it being held behind closed doors,” he said.