Peace and Democracy Party
Ankara / Turkey
Social Democratic
The Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi ( Kurmanji: Partiya Asti û Demokrasiyê, German party of peace and democracy ), BDP, is a political party in Turkey. Its stated purpose is to represent the interests of the Kurdish minority. It is the successor party of the pro-Kurdish DTP. The party logo shows an oak tree on a yellow background. The party is an associate member of the Socialist International and the Party of European Socialists.
- 2.1 arrest of party members
- 2.2 Attack on BDP Politicians
- 3.1 boycott of the constitutional amendment in 2010
- 3.2 Call to Protest
Foundation
Members of the Demokratik Toplum Partisi (DTP ) founded the party of peace and democracy on 2 May 2008 as the replacement party, as a party closure case against the DTP was initiated. On 11 December 2009 the DTP was banned by the Constitutional Court and 19 of its MPs joined the BDP, which the BDP is represented in parliament. Currently, the BDP has 36 MPs in Parliament, some MPs are arrested, the mandate was revoked. The party thus has group strength.
End of December 2009 occurred in 91 of the banned DTP mayors of the BDP, including the mayor of Diyarbakir, Osman Baydemir.
Internal party
On 1 February 2010, an extraordinary party congress was held in Ankara. During the Congress a new party leadership was elected, changed the statute and the program. Through the amendment a double party leadership has been set. Chairman Selahattin Demirtas were the deputies from Diyarbakır and Gültan Kisanak, also deputies from Diyarbakir. But according to Turkish law on political parties no double peak is allowed Kisanak considered as deputy.
At the Congress in April 2011 Selahattin Demirtas and Gültan Kisanak were replaced by Hamit Geylani and Filiz Kocali. At the party congress in early September 2011 in Ankara Selahattin Demirtas was re-elected as party chairman.
With a percentage of women, 31% of the seats in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, the BDP has the highest proportion of women of all parties represented in parliament, the AKP and the CHP are respectively 14% and the MHP to 6%. The only Christian MP Erol Dora in the Turkish parliament is a member of the BDP.
The BDP in the Turkish media
Arrest of party members
In Gaziantep, Adiyaman, Mersin and Hatay Province 22 persons were interrogated for alleged membership in the coma Civakên Kurdistan and arrested without indictment. Those arrested include eight mayors, including the mayors of the cities Batman, Cizre, Kızıltepe, Kayapinar, Sur and Viranşehir.
A few weeks later left the BDP hang in protest against the arrests posters, which represented the arrest of their party members demonstrative. When heading was under the illustration of the poster: fertilizer Halepce, Bugün Kelepçe (German: Yesterday Halabja, today handcuffs ). The poster introduced the wave of arrests represents an attempt at political destruction and compared them with the poison gas attack on Halabja during the Anfal operation.
Several months later, an indictment was released, which has a total of 7583 pages and mainly consists of dialogues intercepted the accused.
On 18 October 2010 the trial against 151 defendants began partly because of membership in an armed organization on the 6th Great Criminal Court ( Agir Ceza Mahkemeleri ) in Diyarbakir. In the 7500 -page indictment, the prosecutor requested prison sentences 5 to 15 years, 36.5 years and life.
Attack on BDP Politicians
One day before the scheduled vote on the constitutional referendum in 2010 was Akın Birdal, Member of Parliament of the BDP, on the speaker's platform, the victim of an assault during a party meeting in Bursa: While Birdal gave his speech, attacked an attacker who had posed as a civilian police officer, Birdal with fists, whereupon he fell to the ground and rally participants tried to lynch the attacker. He was admitted to the hospital with moderate injuries.
The BDP condemned the attack as a "dirty and planned provocation ". Investigations revealed that the attacker, a student at Marmara University, Turkish nationalist demonstrations in Azerbaijan is said to have organized and led. Shortly before his attack, he had participated in the city of Batman on a BDP rally. His attack on a " traitor " he had months previously announced on community platforms such as Facebook.
Actions of the BDP
Like their predecessors, the parties tried the BDP with domestic and extra-parliamentary means to draw attention to the problems of the ethnic minority of Kurds in Turkey. Some activities are presented in the following subsections.
Boycott of the constitutional amendment in 2010
As the only party in the country, the BDP boycotted the constitutional amendment, which includes democratic changes, the country's minorities but still admits no cultural, religious or political rights. The party justified the boycott with the demand for a radically new civil constitution.
As part of its boycott campaign let muster the BDP posters in the majority Kurdish areas, which are written in two languages ( Turkish and Kurdish). These were banned by the Turkish authorities, and shortly thereafter removed. The reason given was that oral propaganda in Kurdish permitted, in writing, however, is prohibited by law.
Call for protest
On 24 March 2011 the dual leadership of the BDP into a nationwide civil disobedience called for. In many cities across the country tents were pitched, in which so-called peace vigils were held. The tents were called " tents of the Democratic solution." The party wanted to draw attention to the action on the still not solved the problem of dealing with the Kurdish minority and put the government and the Turkish public four demands:
- The right to education in mother tongue
- The abolition or reduction of compared to regulations in EU countries than average ten-percent electoral threshold in elections of the Turkish Parliament
- The termination of political and military action against Kurdish organizations
- The release of political prisoners.
While the BDP understand their demands as a long overdue steps, her critics described the action as election propaganda for the June 12 Turkish elections took place.
2011 parliamentary elections
At the parliamentary elections on 12 June 2011, the BDP approached not as a party, but supported independent candidates of the block of Labour, Democracy and Freedom ( tr: Emek, Demokrasi ve Özgürlük bloku ). It succeeded in 2007 in this way to bring 21 candidates into parliament and form a fraction. In this way, the 10% electoral threshold is bypassed. Among the 61 candidates for 39 provinces prominent Kurdish figures such as Leyla Zana, Dicle Hatip, Ferhat Tunç, Şerafettin Elçi, Altan Tan and Yüksel Avşar were ( cousin of Hülya Avşar ). Even socialist candidate as Ertuğrul Kürkçü ( co-founder of THKP -C) and Levent Tüzel (Chairman of the EMEP ) were among them. Among the candidates were also Ahmet Türk and Aysel Tugluk that have been removed after the closure of the DTP their mandate. Part of the current MPs has not been nominated again. Selahattin Demirtas candidates such as occurred in April 2011 from the party in order to compete as independents can. With Erol Dora, the first deputy Christian faith was elected to Parliament in 2011 after decades.
36 of the 65 candidates won a mandate. After the election, the BDP decided to boycott the Constituent closed parliamentary session because the High Election Committee Hatip Dicle has denied the mandate because of a conviction from a previous process. In addition, five of the elected candidates who are in connection with the coma Civakên Kurdistan in custody, not released from prison. 29 Members joined the BDP and form a faction in parliament. The BDP was their boycott and later participated in the first session of Parliament after the summer break on October 1, 2011 part.