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Turkey's government escalates attacks on opposition party

ATTACKS on the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) have escalated in Turkey, with government-appointed trustees appointed to border towns after HDP mayors were detained earlier this week.

Yildiz Cetin and Bayram Cicek, HDP co-mayors for Ercis, had their detention periods extended for four days today after they were held on trumped-up terror charges earlier this week.

They were taken into custody along with the mayors in the border towns of Hakkari, Yuksekova and Nusaybin for making statements opposing Turkey’s war on Kurds in northern Syria.

Hundreds of arrests have been made including of Birecik district co-chair Omer Karadag, who was hauled in today after police broke down his door.

Police remained outside the HDP’s building in Diyarbakir today, barricading people inside and firing water cannon at a party-owned bus which was then removed by a truck.

The HDP was the only party to vote against the war in the Turkish legislature, as the Republican People’s Party (CHP) fell in line with the authoritarian government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan once more.

The CHP also supported Ankara’s illegal invasion and occupation of the peaceful people of Afrin in northern Syria last year.

HDP MP for Izmir Murat Cepni told the Star that now is the time for people in Europe and Britain, in particular the social democratic parties, to step up their support and solidarity.

“The people of northern Syria [in Rojava] have established a democratic, women-led, libertarian and ecologically based society.

“All world-dominating bourgeois states see this system as a danger, which inspires all the oppressed peoples across the world,” he said.

“The Turkish attack is now targeting this system.”

He rallied support for the HDP, calling on support from the public, the left and social democratic parties.

“The attacks on the HDP are an attack on us all,” he said, urging the people of Europe to stand side by side with the HDP and all those opposing war and fascism.

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