Turkey’s Kurds are joining the coalition to oust Erdogan
They are persecuted outsiders—and influential powerbrokers
NILUFER Elik Yilmaz’s tenure as mayor of Kiziltepe, a town in Turkey’s south-east, was short-lived. In November 2019, seven months after she was elected, Mrs Yilmaz, a member of the People’s Democratic Party, Turkey’s main Kurdish one, was ousted by the interior ministry and replaced by a government appointee. Weeks later, she was locked up on terrorist charges. Freed on parole over a year later, she was recently sentenced to more than six years in prison, pending appeal. Across the Kurdish south-east, stories like hers are the rule, not the exception. Of the 171 mayors elected on the HDP’s ticket in the past decade, some 154 have been dismissed or prevented from taking office. Dozens have been arrested. “This cycle has to end,” says Mrs Yilmaz. But that all depends on Turkey’s upcoming elections.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Kingmakers and scapegoats ”
From the April 8th 2023 edition
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