“The Government Has Taken Over the Judiciary and Parliament”

Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Deputy Ertuğrul Kürkçü said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's recent comments on the encounter between BDP members and militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on Aug. 17 demonstrated how far the government of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) had gone to concentrate all the power in their own hands.

"We spoke to the judiciary. They have initiated the relevant procedures. We are also going to follow this through in Parliament," Prime Minister Erdoğan said in relation to the encounter between PKK members and BDP deputies in the southeastern province of Hakkari on Aug. 17, once more raising the specter of abolishing the parliamentary immunities of BDP members.

Those comments constitute the gravest profanity against the independence of the judiciary, according to Ertuğrul Kürkçü, a BDP deputy from the southern province of Mersin.

"These remarks by Erdoğan are striking words that illustrate how far the government has gone with respect to the separation of powers in Turkey, the independence of the judiciary and to construe a dictatorship, independently of what [they] want to do to the BDP," Kürkçü said.

The prime minister's comments indicate that a coup de tat has taken place in Turkey, he added.

"The government has taken over the courts and Parliament. All powers, in the end, have been summoned to unite under the executive office. We are now going to see whether Parliament and the judiciary will wage a war [to preserve] its dignity. As the BDP-block deputies, we are going to take our place at the frontlines of this war of dignity in Parliament," he said.

"An act of war against the BDP"

"What has brought the government to this position is their refusal to recognize the existence and the rights of the Kurdish people, [rights that have been] denied to them since the establishment of the republic, and their impotence in suppressing the ongoing revolt. The public sees this impotence in all its bareness. The prime minister, on the other hand, can neither find a solution to this nor can he put the revolt down by force, and then he decides to annihilate the BDP instead," Deputy Kürkçü said.

The government had already drawn up its plans to attack the BDP, and now they are using the encounter in Hakkari's Şemdinli district as an excuse to put these plans into effect, according to Kürkçü.

"Even if this excuse was to be a completely legitimate one, and regardless of however the government tackles this issue, I believe this move constitutes an act of war and has nothing to do with the law," he said.

"A genuine revolt"

"Everything the prime minister has said in relation to the BDP reflects his own world view. Given how the prime minister has made it until this day under the command of international forces and by striving to derive concessions from them, he also inevitably views the world and others in the same vein as he sees himself," he said.

"There are also other concepts in life which the prime minister is unaware of, however, such as rights and freedom and dignity. He is unaware that poor people can also wage a struggle for rights and dignity. He thinks the poor can go on living by collecting alms and that a revolt could only be staged by individuals outside of the [common people.] This is where he is mistaken, however. The people are genuinely in revolt", Kürkçü added.

There is no legal basis to lift the BDP deputies' parliamentary immunities, as there is no crime to speak of or a situation that would warrant an investigation, he noted.

"Now we are going to see whether the judiciary [can live up to its name,] or whether it merely constitutes a mechanism that serves the government. Rest assured, we are going to defend our rights until the end and never cow-tow to the government," Kürkçü said.

"Our parliamentary immunities are in question, but it is not as if we have obtained personal immunity for ourselves. These immunities are in place to allow us to defend the rights of the 3 million people who voted for us, and we are never going to turn them over to Erdoğan," he said.

"Even if the government succeeds in achieving this goal through lies and deceit before the eyes of the world, it still has nothing to gain. This time around, we are going to take the lead in every place where the people start venting their simmering fury, whether in prison or in poor neighborhoods. We are going to keep waging this struggle until the fall of Erdoğan's dictatorship," Kürkçü added. (EKN)