A TALE OF TWO MAYORS

"We Turks are a people who, throughout our history, have been the very embodiment of freedom and independence."
~ Mustafa Kemal.

Let's compare Kurdish politicians.

First, we have Serafettin Elci. Last weekend in Amed (Diyarbakir), he concluded a series of political meetings in preparation for asking permission from the Ankara regime to form a new political party. Elci was in Amed talking about "federalism" for North Kurdistan. He began his speech in Kurdish. It is a crime to use Kurdish for politics in Turkey.

Serafettin Elci walks around as a free man, with no prosecutors to hound him.

On the other hand, we have two DTP mayors to compare with Serafettin Elci.

The first is the wildly, WILDLY popular young mayor of Amed, Osman Baydemir. This is a guy who was elected by his people after spending years defending them through his work in the IHD (Human Rights Association). He has suffered death threats for his work, suffered an attack by Ozel Timler during the Amed Serhildan last spring, and recently toured those parts of Amed that were devastated by flooding, even stopping to give his boots to a poor woman in the area who had no shoes. He finished his tour in his socks.

Heval Osman is in trouble for a lot of things, many of which have been documented here previously, but there are a couple of new things for which the Amed mayor is now in trouble. Recently, Heval Osman called for the oil and water resources of "The Region" to be administered locally. Erkan Mumcu, head of the fascist ANAVATAN party called Heval Osman a "separatist." Mehmet Agar, head of the fascist DYP party, the murderer personally responsible for thousands of murders and disappearances of Kurds during the Dirty War, and chief rat of the Deep State (can anyone say "Susurluk?") said that no such thing could happen in a "unitary state." He dismissed Heval Osman's remarks as "absurd." Deniz Baykal, of the fascist CHP, called Heval Osman a "terrorist."

Last week, while in Vienna to lobby against Andritz VA TECH HYDRO's participation in the infamous Ilisu Dam project, Heval Osman condemned the project and called for its cancellation. For more on the Ilisu project, check this report.

Now let's all sit back and see how long it takes before the Ankara regime is on Heval Osman for opposing the Ilisu Dam.

The second mayor to consider is Abdullah Demirbas, DTP mayor of Amed Sur and another perennial Bakûrî Bad Boy. As a former teacher, Heval Abdullah has an interest in Kurdish language. He's pro-multicultural, pro-multilingual, and pro-mother-language-education. He's also a "separatist" for this, having been in trouble for it in the past, such as last June. At the end of November, prosecutors opened a case against him for having introduced a Kurdish-language version of Linux at a ceremony for the Sur municipality.

The DTP mayors haven't said anything about federalism.

Serafettin Elci gives parts of his political speeches in Kurdish and talks about federalism. Nothing happens to him. DTP mayors call for local administration of local resources within a "unitary state" and introduce Kurdish language computer programs. They are continually under fire by the regime for these things.

You should ask yourself: Why is that?



By the way . . . Defense committee to formalize Turkey's intent to buy F-35.