Thirteen people have been detained in the eastern provinces of Van and Batman for protesting the removal of three Kurdish mayors in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast on terror-related accusations, the ANKA news agency reported.
The Interior Ministry’s announcement of the removal of three mayors, representing the cities of Mardin and Batman as well as Halfeti — a district in Şanlıurfa province — from their positions and their replacement with government officials sparked protests on Monday.
All three mayors are members of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), the main pro-Kurdish party, and were elected in the March local election, when opposition candidates won in numerous towns and cities, including İstanbul.
Large groups of people, including DEM Party officials and lawmakers, gathered in the three municipalities on Monday amid a heavy police presence to protest the removal of democratically elected mayors. In the eastern province of Van, police used tear gas to disperse the protestors, which resulted in the detention of four demonstrators.
DEM Party Van provincial chairman Yakup Almaç said in a press statement that the people of Turkey will never bow to “this act of oppression” over the removal of the elected mayors. Almaç said the removal of the mayors shows the “political exhaustion” of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Police also detained nine people in Batman, including a local journalist, Batman Sonsöz newspaper reporter Serhat Aslan, who was covering the protest in front of the Batman municipal building. Police also raided the newspaper’s offices.
The DEM Party has denounced the mayors’ replacement as “a major attack on the Kurdish people’s right to vote and be elected.”
“The government has adopted the habit of snatching what it couldn’t win through elections using the judiciary, the police and the trustee system,” the party said in a statement on X.
The ministry’s move follows removal of a district mayor, Ahmet Özer, of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), in İstanbul last week.
All four mayors have been removed from their posts for convictions and charges on terrorism-related offenses, from membership in an armed group to disseminating propaganda for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Since 1984, the PKK has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state that has killed thousands and is formally recognized as a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.
Dozens of pro-Kurdish mayors from predecessor parties have been removed from their posts on similar charges in the past; however, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently expressed full support for efforts to reach out to Turkey’s Kurdish population, describing it as a “window of opportunity.”