Republican People's Party (CHP) Deputy Chair responsible for the Ministry of Justice and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) member Gökçe Gökçen spoke at the PACE spring session in Strasbourg regarding the imprisonment of CHP's Presidential Candidate and Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu.
Stating that 'there is no security without democracy,' Gökçen expressed the following:
"This is a direct attack on free and fair elections; this is an attack on the majority's right to determine its candidate. This is a direct attack not only on İmamoğlu but on all of us who believe in true democracy. Ekrem İmamoğlu is in prison not because he committed a crime, but because he won four elections against Erdoğan and would win another. The 301 young people are in prison not because they committed crimes, but because they showed great courage against bans on peaceful protest.
I will not recount what happened; we discussed it as an urgent agenda item. In the meantime, I thank our colleagues for their great support for the İmamoğlu report. I will not recount what happened, because what matters is not what happened, but how we react to what has happened. If we sacrifice our values, if we do this because we find political actors useful, if we do this to keep refugees outside European borders, if we do this for geopolitical positions, if we are not sure why we hold these principles, if we do not remind ourselves of them, and if we see this organization as just a networking event for the pragmatic business of governments - I am sorry, but we will not only lose more member states; we may also lose this historic institution.
News Source: 12punto
