Ayşe Günaysu: It’s a Deeply Rooted Tradition of the Turkish State to Resort to Unlawful Practices (EXCLUSIVE)

• 10.31.2015, 13:42
•  Region,  World,  Interview

"Armedia" IAA presents an exclusive interview with a human rights advocate, a feminist, a member of the Committee Against Racism and Discrimination of the Human Rights Association of Turkey (Istanbul branch), Ayşe Günaysu. 

-  How would you assess the political pre-election situation in Turkey? What can you say about public moods?

-  There is a fascist dictatorship in Turkey now. No democracy, no human rights, no fundamental freedoms. Turkish army is not fighting the PKK. Turkish army is fighting against Kurdish people. Army and “special unit” forces (very different from regular police force) literally shell the houses with people inside. They kill civilians. They siege towns, declare curfew and leave people in their homes without water, electricity and communication means, dead bodies of children are kept in deep freezers in hot weather. They strip the female guerilla after injuring her, torturing her, and throw her naked body on the street, to take her photograph and service the social media. They injure a young man, then kill him, then tie him to an armored vehicle and drag through the street. They video record from inside the vehicle and we hear insidious curses and insults on the dead body, then service this video to the social media.

They let ISIS members massacre innocent people demonstrating for peace, as is the case with the Ankara massacre on October 10, 2015.

They let fascist mobs put HDP buildings on fire and organize lynches against innocent seasonal Kurdish workers who have nothing to do with PKK.

They arrest local HDP leaders, workers, activists for nothing. 

Just before the elections Turkey is a vast area of state violence. 

-  Recently we very often here about human rights violations and pressures on media in Turkey. How serious is it and what influence it can have on the results of the elections?

-  It is extremely serious. Recently, something unprecedented happened. Police raided into the premises of a media group owned by the Gülen Movement, once the ally of AKP, now one of the biggest enemies. The police attacked people protesting the raid and the employees of a number of newspapers and TV channels of this group, injured and arrested some of them. This means that there is no press freedom in Turkey and all media outlets are under danger of closure, attack, and forcibly stop publication/broadcasting.

-  Is it possible that Turkey this time also will face the same situation as after the previous election and it will be impossible to form a coalition?

-  I am very pessimistic about the situation in Turkey. In Kurdish provinces the election results may be declared invalid, or the elections may be cancelled at the last moment. Because President Erdoğan is ready to run all the risks just not to lose the power. The reason is, there are huge corruption cases and huge investigations about all their unlawful activities. If AKP loses power it will be their end. So AKP, more specifically Erdoğan, may do everything not to leave the ruling power. Everything. This includes a literal chaos and a civil war in the Kurdish provinces and big riots in the West. 

Turkish Constitution provides that if the elections are cancelled, or results declared invalid, due to some kind of necessity, the existing government will continue for another one year. They will do everything to make this happen. If nothing happens and the elections are completed without any mess, and if no coalition is formed, there will be chaos again.

Why such an irrational, horrible, scary situation in Turkey? Simple: because it’s the deeply rooted tradition of the Turkish state to resort to unlawful practices, because the foundation of the Turkish state was laid with the crimes committed by the state itself: the genocides of Armenians, Assyrians and Anatolian Greeks; because the official policy of Turkey is destruction and denial. Justice never came to Turkey. It knows no justice. No democratic state tradition in Turkey, no respect for human rights, and fundamental freedoms. As long as the Turkish state refuses to confront the crimes committed against humanity, refuses to recognize, restitute, compensate for the Armenian Genocide and thus start a new era of justice, this country will continue to see this bloodshed and injustice.