Intel: Turkey orders arrest of pro-Kurdish politicians over 2014 Kobani protests

Sep 25, 2020

Some 20 Kurdish politicians and activists were arrested today after prosecutors in Ankara issued warrants for 82 people accused of inciting public unrest and abetting terrorist acts and propaganda. The charges stemmed from deadly riots that erupted six years ago across the mainly Kurdish cities in the southeast when the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani on the Turkish border was besieged by the Islamic State. Incensed by the Turkish government’s refusal to come to Kobani’s aid, thousands of Kurds took to the streets. The protests turned violent, leaving 46 people dead and over 600 others wounded.

Prosecutors accuse the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) of igniting the unrest in tandem with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The mayor of the eastern city of Kars, Ayhan Bilgen, and three former HDP lawmakers were among several prominent HDP members who were detained today. The Ankara chief prosecutor’s office said indictments were being drawn up for seven other HDP lawmakers over their alleged connection to the riots. 

Why it matters: The timing of the arrests has prompted speculation that the real purpose is to deflect attention from the country’s mounting economic worries by further polarizing Turks and Kurds. This in turn, will make it harder for the secular opposition to continue its informal electoral alliance with the HDP. Kurdish votes helped the opposition wrest Istanbul and Ankara from the ruling Justice and Development Party in mayoral elections last year.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made demonizing the HDP part of his electoral strategy since June 2015, when the pro-Kurdish group denied his Justice and Development Party (AKP) a ruling majority in parliament for the first time since it came to power in 2002. That same year Erdogan ended peace talks with the PKK. A 2½-year-long cease-fire with the militants collapsed. 

Erdogan has since relied on his nationalist ally, Devlet Bahceli’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), to sustain his majority in the parliament and to win the presidential elections in 2018. In exchange, Erdogan has met nationalist demands to suffocate the HDP, locking up scores of HDP lawmakers and mayors. The party’s charismatic former co-chair, Selahattin Demirtas. is among them.