Leftist and socialist parties react to Saraçhane arrests: 'Release our friends!'

Hazal Güven - 12punto.com.tr

Following the arrest of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and his colleagues, Turkey has been on its feet for days. Citizens who believe that the right to vote and be elected has been usurped have been filling the squares across Turkey for days.

In addition to the images of harsh police intervention during the actions, many citizens, political party officials, and journalists were first detained in house raids. A large portion of the citizens, who were held in custody for long hours, were arrested.

Reacting to the lawlessness of the decisions made, leftist-socialist party officials made evaluations to 12punto regarding the process.

Officials from the Communist Party of Turkey, the Left Party, the Social Freedom Party, the Communist Movement of Turkey, and the Revolutionary Movement made the following statements:

Senem Doruk İnam - TKP Central Committee Member

“This morning, we woke up to the news that 7 more of our young friends had been detained. What has happened following the ordered arrests yesterday shows how afraid and desperate the AKP government is. The arrests yesterday, which included our Provincial Chair, and the detentions this morning were carried out against our members and volunteers who were exercising their right to protest.

The government, which is trying to usurp the right to vote and be elected with a fait accompli, is clearly finding the way to silence rising voices by creating a climate of fear. We say it very clearly: let them know that they cannot scare the people like this.

We remind them once again that a party like the TKP, which is determined, serious, and knows what it is doing and what it wants, cannot be intimidated by such steps. What is being attempted is an act of intimidation, but it also shows how desperate they are.

Our response is clear; against the AKP government that cannot govern, we will defend our will, our right to universal suffrage, and our right to vote and be elected more loudly, in greater numbers, and in a more organized manner. Our young friends have been giving a great lesson to the government and hope to our people for days. TKP youth exercised their constitutional right to protest in their schools and squares. No one should doubt the determination of these friends of ours. They will not allow the country to be imprisoned in darkness in an arbitrary and unlawful manner.

We demand the immediate release of all our arrested and detained friends. The AKP government will not be able to make this country or the TKP bow down.”

Perihan Koca - Social Freedom Party (TÖP) Spokesperson Board Member, DEM Party Mersin MP

“We are in a coup process, and the mind behind the coup is operating a two-pronged process on the streets for the coup to be successful. On one hand, it is paving the way for a fascist and racist but minority initiative to ensure the popular democratic reaction on the streets decays. On the other hand, it is taking socialists, who could neutralize this tactic with their street experience and enable the people's democratic reaction to achieve gains, from their homes with daily house raids and arresting them at jet speed with extremely fabricated justifications.

On the other hand, free press workers, who are the only power that can allow us to see the dimensions of the coup and the reaction against it, were arrested with the same logic. The logic of the arrests is to put the coup on a trajectory and to decay the counter-reaction. Against this tactic, preventing racist and misogynistic hatred on the streets and standing by every single person arrested is of vital importance for the repulsion of the coup.”

Left Party (SOL Parti) Executive Committee Member Deniz Demirdöğen

“The actions that started in universities and spread across the country against the government's attempt to usurp the popular will on March 19 have turned into a great popular rebellion against the regime. The accumulated anger of the people against the regime's policies of force and oppression has been flowing like millions into marches in universities and neighborhoods for days.

The government is trying to intimidate students and citizens who use their constitutional right to protest with detentions and arrests. But this people will not bow down to any kind of tyranny from this government. The walls of fear have been breached; now, no ruler, no dictator can stand against the great popular opposition.”

Aysel Tekerek - General Chair of the Communist Movement of Turkey

“We are going through a period where the AKP has been swinging the stick of the judiciary at the people of Istanbul and thousands of citizens who have taken to the streets in Turkey for the last 5 days. The AKP is ending all actions that are not even crimes, and for which there should not even be detentions, with arrests. Of course, its goal here is to create fear and panic among the people and to prevent people from taking to the streets. However, we have long passed that stage.

In Turkey, laborers, women, and youth have long since breached the wall of fear. Those who take to the streets are also fighting for an equal, free, and fair country at the same time. Therefore, there are places where this judicial stick of the AKP will work, and places where it will not. This judicial stick over the people does not work; it backfires. The AKP also shows how afraid it is with these actions. This is also an important detail.”

Erçin Fırat - Revolutionary Movement Executive Committee Secretary

“It is very clear that these detentions and arrests are the result of fear. The CHP might end the meetings, and agreements might even be made on certain issues. But especially the youth actions are a dynamic they did not calculate, which will start tomorrow if it ends today, and which the AKP cannot control. They cannot govern this country, and their only chance is to increase oppression.

The fact that our friends were arrested by instruction at the last moment yesterday, while they were about to be released under judicial control, shows that they are only concerned with intimidation in an uncontrolled manner. There is no possibility of stopping the millions who show the will to own their country. The forms of action may change, but the resistance of millions for equality, secularism, and independence will continue.”