Will Erdogan get rid of the Peoples’ Democratic Party?

Will Erdogan get rid of the Peoples’ Democratic Party?

Translated by Tsoler Aghjian

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been calling for a ban of Turkey’s third-largest party, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). The Turkish public prosecutor started filing a lawsuit against the party months ago to ban it, close its offices and prevent it from carrying out its activities. Currently, the HDP is awaiting a decision on its case after it was granted a grace period of an additional month to defend itself against the accusations leveled against it. It is expected a verdict will be announced this month. But the question remains: why does Ankara insist on banning the HDP under the pretext of “terrorism”?

The HDP is a pluralistic Turkish party that includes mainly Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians, Alawites, Arabs and other minorities living in their historical land in Turkey, in addition to Turks who believe in equality between these various ethnic components. Therefore, the party’s participatory tendencies are the main motive for the AKP and its ally, the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), to ban its activities, especially with the approach of the presidential and parliamentary elections in less than two years in June of 2023.

The electoral victory of the pluralist party in the 2015 parliamentary elections came as a surprise to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling party. For the first time, the HDP won 80 seats in parliament, surpassing the ten-percent voter threshold necessary to form a bloc in the Turkish Parliament and ending the parliamentary majority enjoyed by the Turkish president’s party. As a result, Erdogan was forced to ally himself with the Nationalist Movement, although he insisted on holding early parliamentary elections in the same year. However, he could not eliminate the pro-Kurdish party, which returned to Parliament again as the party with the third-largest parliamentary bloc and ranked second among the opposition parties to the Turkish president.

Erdogan today fears a repeat of that loss in the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for 2023, especially since most opinion polls in Turkey confirm a significant decline in his party’s popularity. He is now trying to pressure the pro-Kurdish party and demand its ban for fear of a possible defeat if HDP voters favor his opponent in the upcoming elections. This happened in Istanbul when its current mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, won the local elections twice in March and June of 2019 with the support of HDP voters.

The last local elections in Turkey took place more than two years ago and served as an additional lesson to Erdogan about the importance of the votes of HDP supporters, as they ousted his party’s candidates for mayors of Ankara and Istanbul after they voted for the opposition candidates. This loss was critical for the Turkish president, as he always repeated that “whoever rules Istanbul will rule Turkey.” He knows that the HDP is an obstacle to his victory and his party in the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections, and so he seeks to ban it to ensure victory.

The ruling Turkish party also failed to exclude the HDP from the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2018, although it has been exerting great pressure on the Peoples’ Democratic Party since it crossed the parliamentary threshold after the 2015 elections. The HDP participated in the previous presidential and parliamentary elections in conjunction with a fierce security campaign carried out by the authorities against its leaders and rules. Despite this, the HDP crossed the parliamentary threshold and returned to Parliament again, maintaining its position as the third-largest party, although the Turkish authorities had detained former party co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ about two years before the elections, disregarding their Parliamentary immunity.

Since the pro-Kurdish party entered Parliament in 2015, Ankara has detained dozens of HDP deputies and later revoked their parliamentary membership. In addition, the Ministry of Interior has dismissed and detained most of the HDP mayors, who won the head seats of 71 municipalities, including Kurdish-majority cities, in the 2019 local elections, and replaced them with Turkish government-appointed guardians belonging to the ruling AKP. The security forces have also detained and imprisoned more than 25,000 members of the HDP and continue to detain thousands of them, according to the party.

The HDP headquarters is also subjected to horrific attacks. Turkish security forces do nothing to prevent the attacks nor do they imprison or punish the perpetrators. On June 17, 2021 a Turkish extremist attacked the HDP headquarters in the city of Izmir and killed a Kurdish woman named Deniz Poyraz, even though all party buildings in Turkey are guarded by police, including all the headquarters of the HDP.

Less than a month before the killing of Poyraz, unknown persons tried to burn down the central headquarters of the HDP in the capital city Ankara. Here, the security authorities did not act either, as they did not announce the identities of the attackers nor have they arrested them until now.

Despite all the pressures and attacks on the HDP, it has adhered to its pluralism and rotated its presidency since its establishment. It was first led by Kurds such as Demirtaş and Parvin Buldan, and then by Turks such as Sezai Temelli and Yüksekdağ, and today it is led by Midhat Sancer, who is an Arab, and his representative in economic affairs is Armenian Garo Paylan.

This is what has been happening with the HDP since 2015. However, recent opinion polls indicate that it will cross the parliamentary threshold again to maintain its parliamentary bloc in Parliament. It is projected to do so despite all of the government pressure it faces, like the urgent detention of its leaders and deputies and the dismissal and detention of its mayors, in addition to the repeated attacks on its headquarters. Since all these steps did not stop the advance of this party, the Turkish president had no choice but to demand its ban in order to eliminate the anxiety that haunts him about a possible loss in the upcoming elections if his voters cast their ballots in favor of his opponent.

But will the ban of the HDP lead to the disappearance of its voters or their non-participation in the upcoming elections, as the Turkish president desires?

Turkey has witnessed similar experiences in the past when pro-Kurdish parties were banned under the pretext of their association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is banned in Ankara, a charge that the HDP faces today. However, all these pressures did not prevent the emergence of other parties with the same ideas. In late 2009, Ankara banned the Kurdish “Democratic Society” party, but about a year before that, the Kurdish leaders had already obtained a new license for another party, the Peace and Democracy Party, meaning that an alternative to the banned party was ready immediately.

Likewise, when the Peace and Democracy Party was banned due to the repeated accusation of association with the PKK, the HDP appeared in 2012 and was able to bypass the Kurdish segment, to include in its ranks the various minorities of Turkey, in addition to the Turks themselves. Therefore, if the HDP is banned in October, this will not prevent it from participating in the upcoming elections, as it has repeatedly announced that it will resort to establishing a party with another name if it is officially banned. This means that it will be present with its voters to confront Erdogan and his ruling party in any upcoming elections in Turkey.

Cook County commissioners delay vote on replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day

The Cook County Board of Commissioners voted to defer a resolution that would change Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day, the second time a vote on the issue was delayed this year.

The resolution was viewed as a step toward reconciliation and healing for Native American communities, but it faced pushback on Tuesday from members of the county’s Italian American community, as well as Black descendants of those enslaved by the Native American tribes.

If passed, it would remove Columbus Day from the calendar and declare the second Monday in October “exclusively be recognized as Indigenous Peoples’ Day” in Cook County. Native Americans in the county make up the ninth largest Urban Native community in the U.S., the resolution said.

The resolution was initially debated in late May, but a vote was delayed after pushback from Cook County Commissioner Stanley Moore, whose grandfather was a Choctaw Freedman.

In May, Moore said that despite his grandfather’s ties to the tribe, he has been denied recognition as a descendant. The denial prevents him and other freedmen’s descendants from accessing benefits exclusive to descendants of the tribe, such as education and housing assistance and casino profits.

Proponents of the resolution included organizations such as the Native American Rights Fund, Chicago NOW (National Organization for Women) and the Chicago Teachers Union, according to Rev. Erin James-Brown, who spoke in favor of the resolution. Chicago Public Schools voted to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day last year.

Those advocating to replace Columbus Day said it represents the genocide committed against Native peoples by white settlers and explorers like Columbus.

“Genocide, rape, murder, colonization, slavery. That’s the legacy of Columbus,” said Les Begay, a citizen of the Dine Nation. “We’re asking for recognition, we’re asking for reconciliation for the atrocities and the murders of the indigenous people.

But Italian Americans like Salvatore Camarda, the second vice president of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, said to them the holiday represents their Italian heritage, and the Italian community’s perseverance in the face of violence and discrimination. Camarda referenced the 1891 lynching of 11 Sicilian Americans in New Orleans, one of the deadliest lynchings in U.S. history.

“If any other groups want to have their own reconciliation day, there’s 364 other days in a calendar year, but do not attempt to take this day away with such a historic significance for 20 million Italian Americans in this country,” Camarda said.

But many activists questioned the motivations of those who opposed the holiday change, and said the resolution would be the first step in a long fight for reconciliation.

“This isn’t about heritage and culture, this is about power dynamics,” said Maria Acosta, speaking on behalf of the Illinois Poor People’s Campaign. “We celebrate a united rejection against white supremacy.”

Whistleblower brings attention to Facebook and Instagram affecting young people’s mental health

“Young girls are susceptible to social media and a lot of it relates to comparison.”

SAN DIEGO — Frances Haugen, the former Facebook employee turned whistleblower told Congress Tuesday that social media giants Facebook and Instagram are affecting young people’s mental health.

“I think they would get rid of engagement-based ranking because it is causing teenagers to be exposed to more anorexia content,” said Haugen.

She said after viewing this content, young girls actually use the app even more.

“It can become very addicting. I tend to go onto an app, I find myself scrolling, and then am like ‘why am I doing this?'” said social media user, Stacey Yang.

Dr. Willough Jenkins, Medical Director of Inpatient Psychiatry at Rady Children’s Hospital said most young people are on these social media platforms for nine hours a day.

“Young girls are susceptible to social media and a lot of it relates to comparison. They see the highlights and perfectly curated images or comments. This makes them feel lower self-esteem about body image,” said Dr. Jenkins.

An internal study states 13.5% of teen girls say Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls say it makes eating disorders worse.

Parents are concerned.

“For parents, I have heard outrage and shock,” said Dr. Jenkins.

“There has to be a moral compass here,” said parent, Eileen Seemayer.

“Facebook knows that parents today because they didn’t experience these things, they never experience this addictive experience with a piece of technology. They give their children bad advice. They say things like, ‘why don’t you just stop using it?'” said Haugen.

Dr. Jenkins said it’s important for parents to share an open dialogue with their kids.

“Encourage positive use of social media. Add four influential female role models so you can see positive people as opposed to negative people,” said Dr. Jenkins.

Dr. Jenkins also said too much time on the apps can cause problems with sleep and cause anxiety and depression. She suggests limiting time on social media to two hours a day or less.