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ESP calls for international solidarity after police raids target the party in a bid to crush organised resistance

POLICE raids targeted leading members of Figen Yuksekdag’s Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) in Turkey today, hauling a number of them into custody in Istanbul, Maras and Diyarbakir.

The party called for urgent international solidarity.

Vedat Cinar Altan, co-chairman of the party’s Istanbul section, was placed under house arrest after being detained during protests against the appointment of pro-government rector Melih Bulu at the city’s prestigious Bogazici University.

Mr Altan had been planning actions to mark the anniversary of the 1995 Gazi massacre, a four-day pogrom against the Alevi community in which 24 people were killed.

At least six more ESP members were detained in the largely Kurdish cities of Diyarbakir and Maras as the party told the Morning Star that the latest operations were a continuation of the increased pressure that it has faced since September.

The ESP is a key component of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and has played a leading role in uniting the resistance at Bogazici University.

It forms part of a new coalition of forces including Partizan, the Revolutionary Party and the Democratic Regions Party (DBP), the latter being a sister party of the HDP that contests municipal elections.

But the ESP has faced repression, with 48 of its leading members detained during police raids last month and the offices of its ETHA news agency raided and equipment destroyed.

In January, ESP member Gokhan Gunes was abducted in broad daylight in Istanbul and held in a dungeon for five days, during which he was electrocuted and threatened with rape by state operatives who identified themselves as “the invisibles.”

Speaking to the Morning Star, ESP co-chairwoman Ozlem Gumustas said that the latest attack aimed to deter solidarity with the Bogazici resistance, which has spread beyond the defence of academic freedom.

“They want to break solidarity among resisting workers and our party as the voice of the poor in working-class districts. This is the only explanation for the attack,” she said.

Ms Gumustas said that the state fears united resistance by revolutionaries and the oppressed, adding that “their fear will not save them from us. We will continue to make their fears grow.”

She called for international support and solidarity in the face of systematic attacks on the party and the continued arrest of its members and supporters.

Urgent messages of solidarity can be sent to: [email protected]

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