Nonviolent Resistances in the Contemporary World by Nalanda Roy

Author:Nalanda Roy [Roy, Nalanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367566111
Google: 2pGrzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Limited
Published: 2021-12-27T04:29:06+00:00

4.4 Election aftermath and attempted coup

The already antagonistic relationship between Erdoğan and the HDP took another turn for the worse in July of 2016 when an attempted coup against Erdoğan and his AKP government was thwarted. Turkey has a history of military coups (e.g., 1960, 1980, along with military interventions in 1971 and 1997), and the coup plotters, most likely Gülenists, believed they could take advantage of that tradition. Erdoğan termed the failed coup and its aftermath a “gift from God,” giving him an excuse to go after all his political rivals and enemies. All the Turkish party leaders, including the HDP cochairs, condemned the coup. Erdoğan, in an expression of thanks, invited all the party leaders except Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ to the presidential palace. Erdoğan did this to politically isolate the HDP and was a sign of things to come.37 In the days and weeks following the coup attempt, purges of state institutions and a series of show trials were enacted to further consolidate Erdoğan’s power.38 As for the HDP, their condemnation of the coup did not shield them from Erdoğan’s wrath. In the aftermath of the attempt, HDP leaders Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ were detained, along with other HDP MPs, over their refusal to testify about sham crimes linked to “terrorist propaganda.”39 Erdoğan successfully stripped Demirtaş and other HDP MPs of their parliamentary immunity, allowing him to wrongfully prosecute them for treason.40

Before the attempted coup, Erdoğan was already alienating those friendly to the Kurdish cause, as can be seen in the prosecution of “Academics for Peace,” a group of initially 1,128 academics who signed a petition critical of Turkey’s renewed violence in the southeast (Human Rights Watch, 2017).41 Erdoğan purposefully targeted the Kurdish cause as a means to rally nationalist support to his party. Kurdish and other opposition media were shut down, including Ozgur Gundem, a pro-Kurdish newspaper, and IMC TV, a television network known for its pro-Kurdish and liberal content. Erdoğan blamed his former ally Fethullah Gülen, and the Gülenist movement—a socially and politically active Islamic group—for the failed coup attempt. He would go on to make preposterous claims that Gülen was working with “Armenian Brigands,” the Kurdish PKK, and YPG as part of a “treason gang.” Despite the fact that there has never been any evidence for such claims, they, nonetheless, became a fundamental part of Erdoğan’s narrative about the coup.42 Under the pretext of supporting terrorism, leaders of the HDP were arrested as part of the post-coup crackdown. Authorities claimed they were targeting anyone with links to Fethullah Gülen and the PKK, despite their differing ideologies and the lack of any evidence linking them to one another.

Although the AKP dominated the 2019 local elections, HDP still did well in the majority-Kurdish east of the country.43 In March 2019, HDP mayoral candidates won 65 Turkish municipalities, only to have Erdoğan take control of all but ten of those. As of February 2020, 32 HDP mayors had been removed from office and replaced with provincial and district governor “trustees.

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