Countries need to speak out

This new move to ban the HDP by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is just the tip of the iceberg. It comes after years of attempts to marginalise, victimise, imprison and allegedly even torture politicians, academics, artists and citizens in Turkey. Despite being aware of all this, the international community has chosen – and still chooses – to remain silent.

Last December, however, the European Court of Human Rights did rule against Turkey in the case of Selahattin Demirtaş. The court asked for his immediate release from prison, noting that the Turkish government had an ulterior purpose in preventing him from carrying out his political activities, depriving voters of their elected representative and “stifling pluralism and limiting freedom of political debate: the very core of the concept of a democratic society”. Despite this decision, the wider international community did not pressure Turkey to release him, and he remains in prison.

President Erdoğan continues to use prosecution and imprisonment as a way of intimidating and removing his political opponents. And this practice will continue, unless it is criticised and condemned by democratic countries, both in Europe and beyond.

Banning the HDP and denying the political will of millions of people should not be tolerated by democrats. Democracy, and respect for human rights and freedom of speech, are under threat in Erdoğan’s Turkey. This is why European and international democratic forces need to react immediately, not only to support and show their solidarity for the HDP, but also to acknowledge that we are now engaged in a struggle to save democracy itself.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.