HDP: 2018 is the year of struggle

Mahmut Oral
 
HDP Co-Chair Serpil Kemalbay said, “We find ourselves confronted by a wretched ruling party that is trying to buy friends by signing missile agreements in the world. A ruling party that is left without friend in the world. We find ourselves confronted by an AKP that has set itself domestically against not just the HDP and HDP voters but all dynamics. What behoves us is to bring these dynamics together and stand hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. There is no salvation alone. It is either all together or none of us. We are the hope and hope is in our hands.” The HDP staged its regional conference in Diyarbakır prior to the third ordinary congress that it will hold on 11 February. The event, held at the Vedat Aydın Conference Hall at HDP Provincial Headquarters, was attended by HDP Co-Chair Serpil Kemalbay, members of parliament, Central Executive Committee members and representatives of civil society organisations. A banner reading, “From yesterday to today with the same decisiveness, from the past to the future with the same courage,” was displayed in the auditorium.
 
“No stepping back”
 
HDP Co-Chair Serpil Kemalbay, pointing to the sentencing of HDP Diyarbakır MP İdris Baluken to sixteen years and eight months’ imprisonment, said, “Punishments have been dished out, not just to Baluken, but to Sebahat Tuncel, Aysel Tuğluk, Leyla Birlik and many of our colleagues. They have tried to give us a message. They are saying, ‘We will purge you from politics; we will destroy the HDP.’ And we say, ‘Don’t hold back with whatever you’ve got, we will continue the struggle and we will never ever take even a millimetre step back.’ They are not only detaining us. We witness massacres and systematic torture. The vilest of these is digging people up from their graves and carrying off their bones. They have retained no respect even for graves and even for the dead. They are in such a huge tight corner that they even attack our dead bodies and graves.”
 
“Wretched ruling party”
 
Kemalbay, stressing that the AKP was left without a friend in the world, continued as follows: “We know that the AKP – Erdoğan regime does not actually have a lifetime of even one day given combined democratic forces and an organised struggle. We find ourselves confronted by a wretched ruling party that is trying to buy friends by signing missile agreements in the world. A ruling party that is left without friend in the world. We find ourselves confronted by an AKP that has set itself domestically against not just the HDP and HDP voters but all dynamics. We find ourselves confronted by a ruling party that has declared war on the whole of society and is mercilessly darkening the lives of everyone from babies to the elderly. What behoves us is to bring these dynamics together and stand hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. There is no salvation alone. It is either all together or none of us.
Five years ago we came out and united, congregated in the streets in solidarity and removed them from power. We will now do this with even greater courage and hope. We are the hope and hope is in our hands.”
 
“2018 is the year of struggle”
 
Kemalbay, saying 2018 would determine the fate of the peoples of Turkey, proclaimed, “Even though they know that uniform attire is torture and they cannot make political prisoners wear them, they have brought it onto the agenda. They are not doing this just to intimidate us. They are attacking us systematically, because we are a struggle that flows gushingly against everything. They want to bring a halt to this. They are saying, ‘You busy yourselves with uniforms and your funerals and let us continue our plunder.’ Forget it! We will both be in these fields of struggle and we will struggle against the AKP – Palace regime. 2018 will determine the fate of the peoples of Turkey. This is the awareness with which we perceive the congress process before us and we are readying ourselves.”