On behalf of the UEL Group Mr Kox asked the Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate a new wave of “politically inspired arrests and call on the Turkish authorities to end immediately this new crack down of the political opposition, of which already so many members and elected representatives have been put behind bars without any proper legal reasoning.”
In light of the “anti-terror operations” carried out in 40 provinces in Turkey since February 12 as announced by the Turkish Ministry of Interior 718 people, including HDP provincial and district chairs, have been detained.
According to the information provided by the HDP’s Commission on Law Affairs and Human Rights, a total of at least 139 HDP members and executives have been detained in several provinces in the mentioned period. Accordingly, the number of detainees in various provinces is as follows: Bursa (6), Van (29), Aydın (13), Diyarbakır (26), Ankara (10), Manisa (7), Mersin (6), Adana (20), İstanbul (22).
UEL Chair Tiny Kox stated in the letter that: “As so many times before, the Turkish authorities use mass arrests to react to events, without the beginning of proof that there is any relation between these events and the people whose freedom is brutally taken.”