Turkish authorities continue to “prevent our party’s third congress from taking place on February 11” by arresting a number of party members across the country, said Serpil Kemalbay, HDP co-chair who herself is the subject of an arrest warrant.
“We condemn and protest these unlawful arrests. We want our arrested friends to be released immediately,” read a statement from Kemalbay on Friday.
HDP will hold its congress and come together with hope, determination, and bravery on the scheduled date, she added.
A court in Ankara issued arrest warrants for 17 people, including Kemalbay, on charges of opposing Operation Olive Branch on the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria.
Kemalbay has not been arrested yet, according to state-run Anadolu Agency.
The co-spokesperson of the pro-Kurdish Union Peoples’ Democratic Congress (HDK), Dr. Onur Hamzaoglu, was arrested in Istanbul by counter-terror forces, Hurriyet reported on Friday.
HDK established HDP in 2012 as its political wing. The union announced in a tweet that despite Turkish operations against them, they will attend the HDP congress.
Turkey has arrested at least 600 people for opposing the Afrin operation on social media or in protests.
Eleven members of the Turkish Medical Association (TMA), including its chairman, Dr. Rashit Tukel, have been arrested since January 30, according to Anadolu. Arrest warrants are out for another three.
The TMA had condemned the Afrin operation on January 26 and called for peace.
“Any clash, any war, by paving the way to irrecoverable issues in terms of physical, spiritual, social and environmental health, will also bring a humanitarian drama,” the group said in a statement on its website.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the TMA of being “terrorist-lovers” and questioned their “silence” on the activities of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara considers a terrorist organization.
The TMA hit back, insisting their opposition to the war is an act of “patriotism.”
Erdogan said on Thursday that his government will strip the word “Turkish” from TMA because of their opposition to the Afrin operation.
The Turkish army and its Free Syrian proxies launched Operation Olive Branch on January 20 against the YPG in Afrin, which Turkey considers an extension of the PKK.
HDP members and supporters have been targeted for investigation and arrest since the parliament voted to lift immunity from a select group of lawmakers in 2016 on terror charges stemming from allegations of ties to the PKK, a named terror organization.
During its congress, HDP is due to elect a new co-chair to replace jailed leader Selahattin Demirtas. Kemalbay was chosen to replace Figen Yuksekdag after her party membership was revoked by a court following her conviction on terror charges in 2017.
HDP has sent invitations to parties of the Kurdistan Region to attend the congress.
On Kurdish issue, Turkey’s parties ‘all the same’
Turkey’s political parties are positioning themselves for elections to be held in 2019. The country will hold local elections in March that year and presidential and parliamentary elections in November. This will be the first time people go to the polls since adopting constitutional amendments that strengthened the presidency in a referendum in April 2017.
While HDP is being taking a battering, Kurds don’t feel like they can put their trust in the main opposition party, CHP, despite a promise from Kemal Kilicdaroglu to resolve the Kurdish question in four years when he was re-elected party head on Saturday.
"I can say that the Kurdish question can be solved by the CHP,” Serif Dogrul, supervisor at the party’s Diyarbakir branch, told Rudaw. “If Kurds support CHP, CHP is ready to provide Kurdish education. Both sides need to trust each other.”
Kurds, however, find it difficult to trust CHP, which was founded by the father of the Turkish Republic Kemal Ataturk, ruled the country for many years, and is now the largest opposition party.
Many CHP members voted in support of the parliamentary resolution to lift immunity from a select group of MPs that has led to the arrests and prosecution of many HDP members on terror charges.
Individual Kurds also remember CHP responses to Kurdish rebellions in the past, its support for Turkey’s military operation in Afrin, and opposition to Kurdistan’s independence vote.
“Operations are being conducted in Afrin. Should there be operations? Yes. We have no objections. We have full trust in our heroic army. They are fighting in the frigid, biting cold. For whom are they fighting and why? To stop terror and for everyone in this country to live in peace. We stand by this struggle,” Kilicdaroglu said in late January, Hurriyet Daily News reported.
HDP MP Bedran Ozturk argued that CHP has never backed Kurdish rights.
"CHP represents the ideology of the Turkish state. They were the ones who established this ideology. They are protecting this. They did not want in the past, neither do they now, nor will they want for Kurds to have their will," HDP MP Bedran Ozturk told Rudaw.
For some Kurds, they see no difference amongst the Turkish parties.
"When it comes to the Kurds, they are the same," Abdurrahim Melek, a Kurd in Diyarbakir, told Rudaw.
