{"id":21252,"date":"2025-03-27T00:04:18","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T00:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uit-ci.org\/?p=21252"},"modified":"2025-03-27T00:04:18","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T00:04:18","slug":"turkiye-lets-grow-the-struggle-to-defend-democratic-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/27\/turkiye-lets-grow-the-struggle-to-defend-democratic-rights\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"T\u00fcrkiye: Let’s grow the struggle to defend democratic rights!"},"content":{"rendered":"
By\u00a0Workers’ Democracy Party<\/strong> (IDP), IWU-FI section in\u00a0T\u00fcrkiye<\/i><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0On the morning of March 23rd, 45 people, including Istanbul Mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu, were arrested on corruption charges.\u00a0While Imamo\u011flu’s arrest warrant from the terrorism investigation opened against him on the basis of \u2018Urban Consensus\u2019 (1) was rejected, three people, including the mayor of \u015ei\u015fli, Resul Emrah \u015eahan, received arrest warrants on this charge, and a Kayyum (trustee administrator) was appointed to the \u015ei\u015fli municipality. It is clear that all these accusations are fabricated by the judiciary, which acts as a sword of the Presidential Palace, with the aim of criminalising, intimidating and liquidating the opposition, in line with the continuity of the Erdo\u011fan administration. As the Workers’ Democracy Party, we condemn and reject these attacks on the right to vote and to be elected, on freedom of association and on the most basic democratic rights.<\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The aggression of the one-man government, which went so far as to arrest \u0130mamo\u011flu, mayor of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and his main rival in the upcoming presidential elections, was certainly not a new or surprising development. After the heavy defeat in the local elections, the\u00a0People’s Alliance<\/i>\u00a0(2) resumed their interventionist practices through ‘kayyums’<\/i>\u00a0(3) and initiated policies to regain political supremacy and criminalise the opposition. The tutelage policy that started against the municipalities led by the\u00a0Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party<\/i>\u00a0(DEM) was extended to the\u00a0Republican People’s Party<\/i>\u00a0(CHP) with the municipality of Esenyurt. This aggression continued in the form of corruption operations in the municipalities of Be\u015fikta\u015f and Beykoz, and terrorism investigations against CHP municipal council members and municipal administrators elected under the ‘Urban Consensus’. It was clear that all these operations were preparations for the attack on \u0130mamo\u011flu.<\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Finally, the one-man regime launched its real attack. First, with the cancellation of \u0130mamo\u011flu’s diploma (4) on March\u00a018th, and then with his arrest, along with almost a hundred other people, in corruption and terrorism operations that were launched simultaneously. After four days of detention, interrogation by the police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Imamo\u011flu was arrested on corruption charges, while the General Prosecutor’s Office appealed the decision to release him on the charge of terrorism; at the time of writing, this appeal is in the process of evaluation.<\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In addition to the operation against \u0130mamo\u011flu, it is understood that a trustee will be appointed to also intervene in the\u00a0Republican People’s Party<\/i>\u00a0(CHP), alleging irregularities in the last party congress and that there are plans to take the CHP to an extraordinary congress with the intervention of the Palace. In response to this move, \u00d6zg\u00fcr \u00d6zel, the main party leader, announced his decision to take the CHP to an extraordinary congress on April 6th.<\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0These attacks by Erdo\u011fan’s government against the main opposition\u00a0Republican People’s Party<\/i>\u00a0(CHP) and \u0130mamo\u011flu reveal the stagnation and desperation of the\u00a0People’s Alliance<\/i>.\u00a0Erdo\u011fan’s People’s Alliance, whose electoral support has been gradually weakening as a result of the economic devastation for which it is responsible and its persistent oppressive and anti-democratic policies, is once again trying to maintain its power through oppression, fear and criminalisation of the opposition.\u00a0However, these moves it is undertaking only deepen the contradictions in which it finds itself.\u00a0On the one hand, the aggression against the main political opposition – which went so far as to arrest the presidential candidate, remove him from politics and appoint a proxy for his presidency – further weakens the \u2018legitimacy of the ballot box\u2019, which is its ultimate basis of support.\u00a0Moreover, these measures further disrupt the fragile economic structure and gradually reduce the social base on which the government relies.\u00a0The initiative carried out under the name of \u2018Turkey without terrorism\u2019 is entering into new deadlocks with the policy of labelling the \u2018Urban Consensus\u2019 as terrorism. The most important thing is that this time this new aggression of the government is facing the mobilisation of the masses, especially the youth, on the streets.<\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The student youth, who acted immediately following the diploma annulment operations and arrests, also gave a lesson on how to respond to anti-democratic attacks.\u00a0The administration of the\u00a0Republican People’s Party<\/i>\u00a0(CHP), which initially seemed paralysed and remained silent after the operation, called for action in Sara\u00e7hane following the youths actions and protests, and the growing social pressure.\u00a0The popular masses filled Sara\u00e7hane square from day one and increasingly mobilised in defence of democratic rights.\u00a0Mass demonstrations took place not only in Sara\u00e7hane Square, but also in many other squares in Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara and across the country. This mobilisation of the working people was the main factor that destroyed the legitimacy of this action of the government.<\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Although the CHP leadership called for the streets under the pressure of mobilisation, it showed that, as in previous moments of rupture, it was more afraid of the power and mobilisation of the streets and the masses, than of the power of the government.\u00a0The CHP administration made its calls for action under the pressure of the masses, in order to limit and control them, and insofar as it could not prevent them, to try to turn them into its own demonstrations and rallies.\u00a0It did not call on the district organisations to fill the camps, nor did it organise buses from the districts, nor did it take any initiative to further mobilise the masses.\u00a0The masses filled the squares despite the passive, cynical and \u2018limit politics to the ballot box\u2019 attitude of the CHP leadership.<\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0As a result of this mobilisation of the masses, it was achieved that \u0130mamo\u011flu was released of the terrorism charges, and that the government took a partial step backwards by abandoning the appointment of trustees for the administration of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.\u00a0However, \u0130mamo\u011flu is still being held on corruption charges and, as can be seen from the Prosecutor’s objection to this decision, as long as the current regime continues to exist, the interventionist regime through trusteeships will continue to threaten all aspects of life, from the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality to other municipalities, from universities to political parties.<\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Now, the masses are discussing what to do next and how to continue the mobilisation.\u00a0The CHP leadership will soon put an end to its calls for action limited to the rallies at Sara\u00e7hane Square, and will be eager to return to its everyday policy limited to \u2018waiting for the ballot boxes\u2019.\u00a0However, the mobilisations that began with the arrest of \u0130mamo\u011flu, then arose in defence of democratic rights as a result of the accumulated anger against the oppressive attacks of the one-man, authoritarian regime.\u00a0The mobilisation must continue and become widespread until all political prisoners are released, the criminalisation of the political opposition is ended and a real break with the regime and the trustee policy that extends from the municipalities to the universities and the administration of the country is achieved!<\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Today, while millions of CHP supporters and non-supporters, angry at the one-man, authoritarian regime, are mobilising by voting in the polls of the party’s primary elections and showing their reactions; the Kurdish people, demanding freedom and an honourable peace, are filling the squares and the student youth are trying to continue and spread the academic boycott.\u00a0All these mobilisations must be united and expanded in order to defeat the Erdo\u011fan regime.\u00a0The only decisive actor that will unite these different dynamics is the working class, which will enter the scene \u2018using its power of production\u2019.\u00a0The calls for a general strike, addressed to trade unions and labour organisations, take on great significance in this context.\u00a0In order for all the labour organisations, especially the\u00a0T\u00fcrk-\u0130\u015f<\/i>\u00a0(Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions), to take action, the pressure on their leadership, which is trying to bury its head in the sand or settle for symbolic statements, must be doubled or tripled.\u00a0In this sense, as the Workers’ Democracy Party (IDP), we continue to call on the socialist left and all labour organisations to build a Labour Alliance that combines the struggle against the anti-democratic attacks and the policies of economic destruction with a plan of action.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
Free the political prisoners!<\/p>\n

Stop the criminalisation of the political opposition!<\/p>\n

End the interventionist trustee (Kayyum) regime in the municipalities, in the universities and in the whole country!<\/p>\n

The solution lies in the united struggle, the solution lies in the workers’ alliance!<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
(1) –\u00a0Kent uzla\u015f\u0131s\u0131<\/b>, or \u2018Urban Consensus<\/i>\u2019: this is the name given to the actions by which the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) did not present candidates in some electoral districts in the western provinces and supported the candidates of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) party to which \u0130mamo\u011flu, the detained mayor of Istanbul, belongs. The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which is addicted to Erdo\u011fan, defines \u2018urban consensus\u2019 as an activity aimed at increasing the PKK’s influence in the cities. Under this argument, it carries out investigations and arrests for \u2018terrorism\u2019.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
(2) –\u00a0Cumhur \u0130ttifak\u0131<\/b>\u00a0or \u2018People’s Alliance<\/i>\u2019 is the Political Electoral Front of Turkey’s various patronage political parties that supports the presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan and his party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP). It includes, in particular, the nacionalist far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
(3) –\u00a0Kayyum<\/b>\u00a0– Trustee. They are administrators – technocrats – appointed directly by the government (i.e. President Erdo\u011fan) and so don’t come to power through elections. They manage the institution they have been assigned to in\u00a0their name, to ensure government oversight and continuity of the work. These administrators\/trustees can be appointed to political parties, municipalities, trade unions, companies, football clubs, universities, etc. After each local election, Erdo\u011fan would appoint administrators for Kurdistan’s municipalities and arrests the elected mayors. A few years ago, he appointed administrators to Bo\u011fazi\u00e7i University (a public university in Istanbul). After the attempted military coup in 2016, he appointed administrators to companies that financed the coup attempt. Now he wants to appoint administrators for the CHP (opposition party) and for Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
(4) – To run in the presidential elections, you need a university degree. By revoking \u0130mamo\u011flu’s university degree, he is thus unable to run for office.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Workers’ Democracy Party (IDP), IWU-FI section in\u00a0T\u00fcrkiye \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0On the morning of March 23rd, 45 people, including Istanbul Mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu, were arrested on corruption charges.\u00a0While Imamo\u011flu’s arrest warrant from the terrorism investigation opened against him on the basis of \u2018Urban Consensus\u2019 (1) was rejected, three people, including the mayor of \u015ei\u015fli, Resul […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21252"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21253,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21252\/revisions\/21253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uit-ci.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}