HDP Co-President Selahattin Demirtaş received International Peace Bureau’s 2015 International Peace Award. Demirtaş stated that every vote will play an active role in reshaping Turkey.

HDP Co-President Selahattin Demirtaş received International Peace Bureau’s 2015 International Peace Award. Demirtaş spoke during the award ceremony and said that every vote will play an active role in reshaping Turkey. In reference to AKP, Demirtaş added that they will ‘tame the lion that Erdoğan favors.’

HDP Co-President met with NGO representatives and business people during this morning’s breakfast and press conference in Diyarbakır Green Park Hotel. HDP and DBP Amed administrators, Amed Metropolitan Municipality co-presidents, HDP parliamentarian candidates, representatives from GORAN and YNK committees, and Demirtaş’s wife were also present during the event.

'EVERY VOTE WILL PLAY AN ACTIVE ROLE IN RESHAPING TURKEY'

Emphasizing the importance of June 7 elections, Demirtaş said that Turkey has never had hopes this high for reshaping and transforming Turkey. Demirtaş stated that every vote will play an active role in this process and strengthen peace despite their 120 years of painful history. Demirtaş said that this peace does not only involve the silencing of arms but also the end of poverty and misery. Demirtaş highlighted their desire to stop environmental massacres and verbal attacks on HDP in order to bring comprehensive peace to Turkey.

'THEY ATTACKED BECAUSE WE ARE RISING'

Demirtaş stated that the HDP wants to bring all sections of Turkish society to the parliament with the principle of equal and just representation. Demirtaş said that HDP entered previous elections as independent candidates despite the 10 percent election threshold because they believed in the importance of representation. According to Demirtaş, the threshold is not only an HDP problem and more than 20 political parties who receive votes in Turkey are not represented in the parliament. Demirtaş protested the AKP’s description of an HDP electoral failure as advanced democracy because this failure would imply the non-representation of millions of people.

Demirtaş described the AKP discourse on the 10 percent threshold as fascistic and reminded that the government had always invited the HDP to enter parliamentarian elections as a party because it thought that it would get extra 40 seats. Now that HDP has the power to overcome the threshold and stop running as independent candidates, AKP is in great panic. Demirtaş added that AKP thinks they are smarter than everyone else and started to attack HDP because they are scared by HDP’s rising popularity.

'EVERYONE SHOULD BE FREE'

Demirtaş described the AKP government as mad and said that it wants to make Turkey another Syria. Demirtaş highlighted that HDP’s calm approach is keeping the peace in Turkey, and argued that Turkey would be torn like today’s Syria if AKP provocations were to succeed. Demirtaş emphasized that Rojava is the only part of Syria where people from different backgrounds coexist peacefully. According to Demirtaş, Turkey will either be peaceful like Rojava with HDP or fall apart like the rest of Syria with AKP. Demirtaş emphasized that everyone should be free and AKP should end its divisive politics of one language and one religion.

INTERNATIONAL PEACE AWARD

International Peace Bureau representative Fulgida Barattoni spoke after Demirtaş and said that Demirtaş deserves the 2015 International Peace Award. Barattoni described the award as the support of young people and women who follow Demirtaş’s work and appreciate his contribution to the development of peace and freedom for future generations. Demirtaş accepted the award and dedicated it to civilians murdered by the state and the suffering mothers of these civilians.