In the shadow of weapons: it is the HDP, whatever it does is fine

Following news and developments about the HDP members having difficulty carrying out some of their political activities in many provinces in the West, the "intellectuals on duty" displayed their well-known human rights and democracy reflexes and issued a declaration. Fine, we have no objection. Every political idea should be able to be expressed in every region of Turkey. No obstruction, no pressure aimed at this can be accepted.

Especially under election conditions, in addition to and beyond the norms of law and democracy, there needs to be a gentlemen's agreement between the parties. After all, political competition is under way. In a political debate over how the country will be governed, the parties go to the people to prove they are the best. For them to fight one another savagely to grab the people's votes, and in the meantime to try to grab the people's votes through pressure rather than persuasion, spoils the nature of the business. That is why the principle needs to be laid down consistently from the outset. Every attack on any political party, for whatever purpose, is an attack on democracy. We condemn it. And so, the moment we heard of the attacks on the HDP in Adana and Mersin, we condemned them with disgust without any hesitation; we were told we would not condemn them, and that since we are the government we must find the perpetrators. The perpetrators of the incident were exposed before two days had passed, but not the slightest expression of embarrassment appeared on anyone's face. Those who attacked the HDP turned out to be a militant of the DHKP-C, a sister organization of the PKK, which in its mode of operation works entirely on the basis of intrigue plots. It is not at all incomprehensible or inexplicable to understand what he was aiming at with such an attack.

We understand that the difficulties the HDP has experienced in some provinces have lately stirred democratic sensibilities, but why, one wonders, are the difficulties, or rather outright terror, that the same HDP inflicts on other parties in some other provinces never a subject of any democratic sensibility?

An attack similar to the one in Adana took place in the Veysel Karani township of Baykan, Siirt, belonging to the AK Parti. No one saw or heard anyone condemn it, or deliver speeches about it as an attack on democracy.

In Şirvan, 5 children, all under 18, one of them the child of a village guard, were abducted; their families headed straight for the HDP building, and were told in some way that the children would be kept in the mountains until the end of the election and according to the election result.

A short while ago in Eruh, a village headman who openly declared his vote in favor of the AK Parti was murdered in a treacherous ambush set for him at midnight, in the face of threats he had received beforehand, and messages are going out to many headmen, village guards and AK Parti council members in the region to "take a lesson from Musto's situation and watch their step." The lesson and moral to be drawn from Musto's situation is stated plainly: that in the first installment, on June 7, no votes should come out for any party other than the HDP. Countless letters in this vein are circulating in people's hands, a significant portion of them have been passed on to the prosecutor's office, but an even more significant portion unfortunately remains a secret between those who received the threatening messages and those who sent them.

The election minibuses of the AK Parti's Siirt candidates have no glass left to be broken. They are attacked every day in a different way. Yesterday, to discourage attendance at Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu's Siirt rally, people were openly threatened in many villages and in the city, yet attendance was above expectations and very enthusiastic.

However, a group of HDP members attempted to beat youth and women's branch members who were dispersing from the rally. Three women and one man were beaten in the incident. The movement's real face on the woman question, which is the subject of fraudulent eulogies for its "progressive" practices regarding women, thus once again emerges here. For them, a Kurd who does not vote for the HDP is not even a Kurd. A woman who has not submitted to the PKK is not a woman who has rights either.

The terrible exclusion, pressure and exile applied after declaring the Kurds who do not vote for them traitors show what kind of fascistic social design the HDP has from start to finish. Moreover, the cases we described above are only a few examples of those we encountered in the Siirt region alone during this short election campaign. Many more examples of these are routine occurrences in the other cities and villages of the region.

Attacks on the HDP are of course unacceptable, but what is the meaning of this silence toward the aggression and violence that the HDP, as a party policy, displays toward everyone in the East? There is a kind of indifference, stemming somewhat from the perception that "it's the HDP, whatever it does is fitting," that presents the HDP's relationship with weapons as if it were normal. The HDP can attack anyone, kill, threaten, set up gallows, this is its most natural right, but no one can attack the HDP or its election offices.

This lack of standards in the face of the events we are currently living through, treating the other side as an idiot, evidently sees the HDP, mobilized with the PKK, KCK, HPG and all its other elements, as a savior who will serve to remove the AK Parti from power. Well, for that savior there is no harm in sacrificing that much sense, enlightenment and conscience.

It falls to us to watch with sadness the last flailing of these intellectuals.