A large number of people including DEM Party deputies took to the streets in Mersin today after the imprisonment of the DEM Party co-mayors of Akdeniz district municipality, Hoşyar Sarıyıldız and Nuriye Arslan, and city council members Özgür Çağlar, Neslihan Oruç and Hikmet Bakırhan.

Masses gathered at the Özgür Çocuk Park today noon and protested the usurpation of the people’s will. DEM Party MPs, co-mayors, members of the Peace Mothers Assembly, Republican People's Party (CHP), Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP), Labour Party (EMEP), representatives of democratic mass organisations and many people participated in the demonstration.

Speaking here, DEM Party Mersin provincial co-chair Bedriye Kuş said the elected representatives of the people were imprisoned on unlawful grounds. She stressed that they do not recognise this unlawful decision and will resist it until the end.

Pointing out that Akdeniz Municipality was usurped at a time when talks for a solution to the Kurdish question are ongoing, Bedriye Kuş said, “While the hope for peace is rising all over the country, the government continues to use the trustee coup as an administrative apparatus of fascism. The appointment of a trustee to the municipality of Akdeniz, which is a garden of peoples and beliefs, is aimed at preventing our democratic, socialist and women's libertarian local government from meeting with the peoples of Turkey.”

Condemning “this dastardly attack on democracy and the will of the people”, Kuş added: “This is a usurpation of will, a political coup. The trustee regime is a threat not only to the political will of the Kurdish people, but also to the political will of all the peoples of Turkey.”

DEM Party Urfa MP Dilan Kunt Ayan said, “Three days ago, we woke up to the day with a tyrannical practice of the fascist government. Our friends were detained in a conspiracy and were imprisoned on the basis of testimony by secret witnesses and fictitious conspiracies. This conspiracy is directed against the people's right to elect and be elected. The people do not believe your lies. Your monist understanding will end up in the dustbin of history. Akdeniz is not just a district of Mersin. It is the reality of the people who were displaced due to the state's tyranny and came here in the 1990s. Akdeniz is Ağrı, Urfa, Antep and Adıyaman; it is Kurdistan. A common life was established here, and the trustee is a blow against this reality. We will defeat them once again through a united struggle.”

DEM Party Mersin MP Perihan Koca stated that the trustee is illegitimate and said, “We are legitimate. We will win. Our resistance will continue until the end.”

TİP Mersin Provincial Chairman Ahmet Paket said, “We are as stubborn as they are usurpers. We will win together.”

Sedat Başkavak, Mersin Provincial Chairman of EMEP, said, “We will continue our struggle until we take back Akdeniz.”

Peace Mother Emine Eren said: “Every time we say peace, we are attacked. We are on the streets for peace, but we have not seen it. We will fight against injustice. We condemn those who appoint trustees. We will continue to stand vigil on the streets until peace comes. We will win.”

After the speeches, people started to march to the usurped municipality but were confronted with police obstruction on the grounds that the march was not permitted.

A member of the Peace Mothers Assembly fainted during the violent crackdown by the police against the demonstrators who insisted on staging a protest march.

The crowd managed to overcome the police barricades and marched to the DEM Party provincial organization office following the blockade of the road leading to the municipality.

Addressing the crowd, DEM Party Bitlis MP Hüseyin Olan said: “We have been experiencing lawlessness for three days. We were prevented from marching to the municipality and our right to protest the unlawful imprisonment of our friends was denied. This people have never kneeled before you and will never do so. We will never surrender to you. Do not expect different results with the same method every time. The municipality of this people was usurped while the agenda is marked by talks about peace. The issue of trustees does not concern the DEM Party alone, but everyone. This people have not bowed down to you for a hundred years. Stop usurping the will of the people. We will claim our municipalities.”

In the evening, demonstrators gathered in the Yenipazar neighborhood of Akdeniz district to protest the usurpation of their will. The crowd gathered in front of the district organisation of the DEM Party, accompanied by MPs Ali Bozan and Perihan Koca who were set to visit the shopkeepers in the neighborhood to inform them about the usurpation.

The crowd was blockaded and attacked by hundreds of police officers as they wanted to stage a march. The mass responded to the attack with the slogan ‘Pressures cannot deter us’.

MP Perihan Koca protested the attack, saying, “Mersin police are knowingly and willingly committing a crime. You are committing a constitutional offence. None of the police officers confronting us here have any authorisation. Police officers working under instructions should look back at what happened to FETÖ. The biggest terror is the Palace terror.”

The police attacked the crowd once again, injuring many and detaining at least 5 people. Pirha reporter Fatoş Sarıkaya was subjected to an attack by the police. The crowd took the resistance against the attacks and detentions to the side streets, lit fires and chanted slogans. Hundreds of people overcame the police blockade and flocked to the district building.

During the meeting here, a call was made for participation in the public meeting to be held tomorrow in front of the municipality building with the participation of Democratic Regions Party (DBP) Co-Chair Keskin Bayındır.