Skip to main content
Katja Kipping und Bernd Riexinger

Solidarity with the HDP

In Turkey a new wave of arrest has started, therefore Bernd Riexinger and Katja Kipping, Co-Chairs of the party DIE LINKE declare:

As we learned today, a new wave of arrests of high-ranking representatives of the left-wing opposition party HDP has begun in Turkey. 82 people are to be arrested, or have already been, including the Mayor of Kars, Ayhan Bilgen, former Member of Parliament Sirri Süreyya Önder and many other officials. The background is their participation in demonstrations in 2014, when the HDP also protested against the Turkish government's support for the Islamist terrorist militia on the occasion of the IS attack on the Syrian-Kurdish city of Kobane. Former chairmen Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ had already been arrested, among other accusations, for their involvement in the so-called "Kobane protests", and have been in prison since 2016.

We strongly condemn the arrests, as they suspend all principles of the rule of law. This is intended to crush and silence a democratic opposition party, which is opposing Erdogan's authoritarian government. We call on the German Government to act immediately and demand the release of all political prisoners in Turkey. Germany must stop supporting a regime in Turkey that continues to trample on democratic freedoms.

We declare our solidarity with the HDP and the democratic forces in Turkey! The despot Erdogan will not silence the HDP!