The Erdogan government arrested the Kurdish CHP mayor in Istanbul

On Wednesday, the mayor of Esenyurt in Istanbul, prof. Dr. Ahmet Özer of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), was detained and later arrested on charges of “being a member of the armed terrorist organization PKK/KCK”.

The Ministry of Interior has announced that the deputy governor of Istanbul, Can Aksoy, has been appointed as the administrator of the municipality.

Ahmet Özer giving a speech in Van (Photo by Mezopotamya Ajansı / CC BY 3.0)

This arrest and the appointment of a proxy to replace an elected mayor is a clear attack on fundamental democratic rights. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government has long sought to stifle political opposition through such anti-democratic operations, building a police state.

This reactionary practice, which the government systematically resorted to after 2015 by dismissing elected mayors, especially from the Kurdish nationalist movement, also means de facto abolishing the constitutional right to vote and be elected.

According to the Istanbul General Prosecutor’s Office statement, Ahmet Özer’s communications were intercepted because his name was mentioned in “organizational documents… seized from members of a terrorist organization.” It was claimed that during the 10-year period “Özer was in contact with PKK members many times and contacted Kongra-gel co-chairman Remzi Kartal 14 times”.

Şevket Tuci, one of the people Özer is accused of meeting, is his 17-year-old lawyer and was present at his testimony to the police and prosecutors in this case. Faik Kaplan, who made the money transfer mentioned in the indictment against Özer, said that his daughter was a tenant in Özer’s house, that he paid rent and had a lease.

It was also reported that Özer was from the same tribe as Remzi Kartal, whom he last met in 2015, and that various official meetings with Kartal took place in Europe at that time as part of the “peace process”. All this points to the fabricated nature of the allegations and the political nature of the case.

Özer was elected mayor of Esenyurt on March 31 with 49% of the vote. Esenyurt, an industrial city with a large Kurdish electorate, is Turkey’s largest district, with a population of about 1 million. Özer, a Kurdish sociologist and academic, was nominated as a candidate in the local elections as part of the cooperation between the CHP and the People’s Democracy and Equality Party (DEM Party). In line with this strategy, the DEM Party did not nominate any candidates in some cities and districts, especially Istanbul, and asked people to vote for the CHP.

In his first statement, which was released to the media before his arrest, Özer said the following: “I am an author who has written around 40 books, some of them about regional development, some novels, some about Kurdish. question. I have published around 200 national articles and around 300 works”.

Emphasizing that this is a political case, Özer continued: “I am a scientist who (became) a teacher at a young age, I am an academic, I have been a member of the CHP for more than 10 years, I was a candidate for the last elections, I worked as an adviser to İmamoğlu (mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality), I worked at the State Planning Organization… until today there is nothing, they are trying to remove me from my post by bringing up some recent events 10-15 years.”

CHP leader Özgür Özel, in his first statement, said that “The treatment of a scientist, opinion leader and politician who has held senior positions in the public sector and academia for years, who received a clean bill of relevant authorities as a candidate just six months ago. , and who came to office with the great favor of the voters of Esenyurt in the elections in which he participated, is unfair, and the accusations are baseless.”

Özel also said: “These events are not independent of what has happened in recent weeks. We see the foul play, the great conspiracy. We will not be part of it and we will not surrender.”

The CHP leader called for a mass protest in Esenyurt on Thursday. Speaking at the rally, which was supported by the DEM party and attended by thousands of people. “No condolence call to a relative, no phone call from 10 years ago can be linked to terrorism. Erdogan himself openly announced that Ahmet Özel would be arrested. So this was planned,” Özel said, adding that prosecutors acted on Erdogan’s orders.

The DEM party condemned the operation in a statement on social media, saying: “The arrest of Esenyurt Mayor Ahmet Özer and the appointment of an administrator for Esenyurt Municipality is a coup against the will of the people, a usurpation of the will of the people. This is a disregard for local democracy and the will of the people. We will not remain silent against this lawlessness and political coups.” calan

Before Özer’s arrest on trumped-up charges and the appointment of a proxy in his place, Turkey witnessed important developments. On Tuesday last week, Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the fascist ally of Erdoğan’s “People’s Alliance”, made an unprecedented statement. Bahçeli suggested that jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan lift his isolation and address parliament, “shouting that terrorism has completely ended and the (PKK) organization has been dismantled.”

Bahçeli’s statement, supported by Erdoğan, was hailed by the DEM Party and the CHP as the start of a new “peace process” with the PKK. Öcalan was allowed to meet his nephew Ömer Öcalan, DEM deputy for Şanlıurfa, as a sign of lifting the 44-month isolation imposed on him.

However, just one day after Bahçeli’s speech, while Erdogan was in Russia for the BRICS summit, a bomb and gun attack took place at the Ankara facilities of the state-owned strategic defense company Turkish Aerospace Industries Corporation ( TAI). Seven people were killed, including two of the attackers. The PKK claimed the attack.

Ankara responded with days of airstrikes on what it claimed were PKK-YPG targets in Syria and Iraq. “In the last week, 198 terrorists have been neutralized,” the Ministry of National Defense said on Thursday. The Mesopotamia agency reported that 17 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 65 wounded in Syria in airstrikes. This was followed by a wave of arrests against the Kurdish political movement in the country. It was reported that 55 people were arrested in 17 provinces.

These developments come at a time when, in the Middle East, US-backed Israel has accelerated the genocide in Gaza, invaded Lebanon and is preparing a full-scale attack on Iran.

Turkey’s ruling elite is trying to strengthen its hand at home, fearing that an extension of the war could undermine its interests in the region. Erdogan’s statement: “While the maps are being redrawn in blood, while the war that Israel has waged from Gaza to Lebanon is approaching our borders, we are trying to strengthen our domestic front” was a clear expression of this .

Erdoğan approved Özer’s arrest and addressed CHP leader Özel, who objected, saying, “Why do you worry about this when our geography has turned into a circle of fire and members of the terrorist organization are ravaging Esenyurt?”

On the one hand, the Erdogan government is advocating for Öcalan’s release and reconciliation with the Kurdish movement in Turkey to force the PKK to lay down its arms. At the same time, it defends the arrest of a mayor elected by the CHP-DEM party alliance on fabricated charges and continues its policy of military repression against the PKK-YPG. These are the efforts of the Turkish ruling elite to protect their interests through adversarial maneuvers in the face of an escalating war in the Middle East.

The latest developments also show how empty are the promises of the Turkish ruling elite, which is deeply tied to imperialism, to establish democracy and peace. The way forward lies in mobilizing the working class on the basis of an international socialist program, the only social force capable of securing the release of all political prisoners, consistently defending democratic rights and stopping genocide and war.