KCK Executive Council member Mustafa Karasu said: “If the people of Dersim and the Alevi Kurdish population in the southwest wants to live free and autonomously they should work for the success of the HDP.”

Karasu called on all socialist parties, revolutionary forces and their support base in Dersim to unite around the HDP, as success for the HDP would open the way for all democratic forces. Karasu said that Alevis would find the opportunity to live their own culture in the political and social life of Turkey.

KCK Executive Council member Mustafa Karasu said:

I greet the people of Dersim, Sivas, Maraş, Malatya and Adıyaman. These provinces are areas where there is a large Alevi Kurdish population. With the ‘Eastern Reform’ plan of 1926 a policy of Turkification and severing them from their beliefs was implemented in Dersim and on Kurds living east of the Euphrates. According to this plan, that is little known, the people of Dersim, Sivas, Maraş, Malatya, Erzincan and Adıyaman were displaced and forced to move to the big cities and from there to Europe. Alevi Kurds have been banished from their traditional homelands, where their beliefs were shaped by the natural environment.

A chance for a new start

The 7 June elections offer the opportunity to deal a setback to the authoritarian regime and open up a democratic environment where all ethnic and faith identities are able to thrive. It is therefore posdsible for our people living in Europe to be part of a movement that changes the political history of Turkey.

The people must not forget the massacres that were perpetrated

When we look at the past we are always confronted by painful events such as the execution in Dersim of Seyid Rıza and his companions and the massacres in Maraş and Sivas. The Turkish state has always incited tension between Alevis and Sünnis, from which the Alevis have suffered the consequences. Our people must remember this. Today there exists a party that that is an alliance of the democratic forces in Turkey and the Kurdish freedom movement.

A new Turkey can only emerge with the HDP

Our people in Dersim may have voted for the CHP or other parties in the past, but they should realise that a new tolerant Turkey can only emerge with the HDP. If the Alevi culture and belief and the Kirmancki language in Dersim is to be free and autonomous, this can only be realised through the success of the HDP.

I am not just calling on those who support the Kurdish freedom  movement. I am calling on the support base of revolutionary and socialist parties in Dersim. Now is the time to unite. If the HDP succeeds it will benefit all progressive parties and Alevis will get the opportunity to take their place in the social and political life of Turkey with their own identity.

Dersim should take the HDP to victory

We expect the people of Dersim and the region to the west to cast their votes for the HDP. Millions of them live in the big cities, such as  Istanbul, Izmir, Mersin and Adana, ten times the population in their traditional homelands. Everyone should work to ensure that their friends and relatives cast their votes for the HDP.

This election will be one where the decades-long struggle of democratic forces, socialists and revolutionaries and the Kurdish freedom movement will achieve concrete results. It will not be like any other election. On this basis I call on all our people not only to vote for the HDP, but also to strive to ensure the HDP achieves electoral success to trigger a new era in the struggle for democracy in Turkey.