Protests have been taking place in the Kurdish province Siirt since the Turkish Ministry of the Interior removed the co-mayors Sofya Alağaş and Mehmet Kaysi of the DEM Party from office. The unlawful removal came after Sofya Alağaş was sentenced to more than six years in prison for alleged membership of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is being prosecuted as a terrorist organization. The decision is related to a 2022 indictment of several Kurdish media workers accused of “terrorism” because of their journalistic work for the free press. Sofya Alağaş was then the director of the all-female news agency JinNews and was held in pre-trial custody for about a year as part of the proceedings.

On Saturday, hundreds of people took part in a demonstration organized by the DEM Party (Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party), the DBP (Democratic Regions Party) and TJA (Free Women’s Movement), demanding that the government reverse the decision to remove the elected co-mayors from office.

Mustafa Dayanan, co-chair of the provincial association of the DEM Party, said that with this step, Ankara is once again disregarding the will of the people.

Dayanan spoke of a “routine coup mechanism” used by the regime in Ankara against the political representation of the Kurdish population and other minorities. He said that this is a “unique feature of Turkish fascism”, which, with the dismissal of Alağaş, has once again demonstrated “how the last elements of democracy and the rule of law in Turkey are being systematically eliminated”. “But a government that disregards the will of the people will, sooner or later, have to pay a heavy price for it,” he emphasized.

DEM Party Şırnak MP Newroz Uysal Aslan said: “The Kurdish people have been resisting the genocidal policies of the government. The massacres in Dêrsim, Zilan and Agirî are proof of this. Here is the Newala Qesaba, a symbol of resistance as well as genocide. Mr. Öcalan has been resisting the conditions of aggravated isolation since 1999. The struggle continues from İmralı to Tishrin and Siirt. Freedom will start in İmralı and spread to the streets of Siirt. The Kurdish people want an honorable peace. They made all their achievements through resistance. They also sat at the negotiation table through resistance."

The first official act of the governor of Siirt, who has been appointed trustee to the municipality, was to have a huge Turkish flag attached to the entrance of the municipality building, which now resembles a militarized zone due to the massive police presence. DEM deputy Kamuran Tanhan, who took part in the demonstration, described the incident as an “expression of fear” on the part of those in power, who, he said, are driven by an “occupier mentality”.

“To bring hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the city hall and to besiege it is an act that more than clearly shows the fear of the will of the people. We see here the image of occupation, the image of robbery, the image of usurpation of the resources of the municipality,” said Tanhan, referring to the tradition of trustees in Kurdistan abusing their power at the municipal level to engage in nepotism or sinking deep into corruption. ”We will not allow this. We will fight and win back our municipalities,” he stressed.

In the municipal elections in March 2024, Alağaş and Kaysi were elected for the municipality of Siirt with around 50 percent of the vote, despite thousands of so-called ghost voters – soldiers, police officers and other state employees – who do not live in Siirt but were specially included in the electoral register to vote for the AKP. The same scenario was observed in almost all Kurdish provinces and cities. Nevertheless, the DEM Party was able to win 78 municipalities and thus improve on its result in the previous municipal elections in 2019. Since the March elections, eight DEM Party-run municipalities have been usurped by the government. In two CHP-run municipalities in Istanbul, elected mayors were also removed and replaced by government officials.