Can Koçak sees British fingerprints on Erdoğan’s attack on democracy

“While Erdoğan wages war on Turkey’s workers’ movement by jailing socialist MPs, the British police’s harassment of London’s Kurdish community reveals how much this authoritarianism has stretched to Britain”.

This is the introduction to an article by Can Koçak published on the website of the Tribune magazine.

Can Koçak teaches media and journalism at the University of Sussex and is the representative of the Workers’ Party of Turkey (Türkiye İşçi Partisi – TİP) in Britain.

The broad summary of Turkey’s current political landscape, according to the author, is one where an MP is imprisoned despite multiple rulings demanding his immediate release and elected mayors are replaced by government appointees.

Can Atalay is the MP the author is referring to. He was elected as an MP for the Workers’ Party of Turkey (TİP) by the people of Hatay in the general election held in May 2023.

Can Atalay is a human rights lawyer known for advocating for the rights of workers, dissidents, miners, political prisoners, journalists, and victims of institutional neglect, oppression and marginalisation.

At the time of his election, he was in prison as part of the so-called Gezi Park trials – the government’s means of punishing the largest uprising the country had witnessed.

“Attempting to overthrow the Government of the Republic of Turkey”, was the unfounded allegation on which the prison sentence was based.

Atalay was expected to be released after the election on the basis of parliamentary immunity but that was disregarded by Erdoğan’s police state.

Consequently, he took his case to the Constitutional Court, the highest judiciary authority in the country, and that court ruled that Atalay’s rights to be elected, to engage in political activity, and to have personal liberty and security had been violated.

Worldwide demonstrations were organised by the party to demand freedom for Can Atalay including 12 consecutive weeks of sit-in protests in London alone, which were held by TİP Britain.

His case is currently with the European Court of Human Rights. The immediate release of Can Atalay is crucial for the people of Hatay Province.

That was the province that was particularly affected by the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria in February 2023 and its people have since endured the consequences of neoliberal and neo-colonial exploitation.

After local elections in March 2020 the government’s crackdown on elected representatives went on unabated.

Following its failure to be the leading party in election for the first time since 2022, the Erdoğan’s AKP (“Justice and Development Party”) appointed trustees to seven municipalities held by opposition parties, bringing the total to 149 since 2016.

The moves have predominantly targeted officials from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party.

Most of these municipalities are in the south-eastern part of Turkey, which is heavily populated by Kurdish people.

A “war on terror” is the rhetoric which attempts to “legitimise” such attacks on the right to vote and be elected.

According to the author of the article in the Tribune, that rhetoric “also provides context for the police raid on 27 November 2024 at the Kurdish Community Centre in North London, carried out as part of an investigation on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)“.

It is “noteworthy”, according to the same author, that such action by the Metropolitan Police “coincided”, among other things, with a meeting between Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Foreign Secretary David Lammy, during which they discussed a “joint action against terrorism”.

Finally, the author of the Tribune article concludes:

• “In light of this conjuncture, the sudden raid on a community centre invites speculation about potential relationships between the governments of Turkey and the UK, the various factions within the PKK, and broader developments in Syria and the Middle East”.
• “Then again, regardless of how one might interpret and connect these, it is telling that in its detention of political activists, the UK government is employing the same rhetoric used by the Turkish government to justify appointing trustees in place of elected officials”.
• “The newly elected Labour government, which had pledged to address the historical injustices created or exacerbated by 14 years of Conservative rule, appears to be following the footsteps of its predecessor and, more alarmingly, those of authoritative governments who pay no regard to the people’s will”.

We sincerely hope that the author’s fears and allegations will be proved unfounded and the Labour government will make a decisive contribution to the full restoration of human rights and political freedoms in Turkey.