Following the detention order issued against 105 people, including Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor Mr Ekrem İmamoğlu, CHP mayors and bureaucrats, our executive committee members participated in solidarity actions in Istanbul Saraçhane, Güvenpark (in front of the Ministry of Justice) as well as the CHP Headquarters in Ankara. KESK members and leaders also joined actions in many provinces. Our Confederation also made a press statement on these arrests. The full text of the statement is below.
Our country is going through a very dark period.
From politicians to journalists, from mayors to artists and to trade unionists, all those who are in favor of democracy, law and justice are being targeted.
Those who have been in power for 23 years have brought the country to such a state that we wake up every day with a new lawlessness, a new dawn raid.
A new wave of attacks on Ekrem İmamoğlu, the Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, took place yesterday and today. These continuous attacks target citizens giving street interviews and steps to eliminate the last remnants of the rule of law.
The Istanbul University Rectorate decided to revoked Mr Imamoğlu’s university diploma that he obtained 31 years ago, This decision is an utter defiance rule of law. Furthermore, Mr Imamoglu was taken into custody early this morning with a raid on his house.
Following the detention order issued against Imamoğlu and 105 people, including CHP mayors and bureaucrats, the people of Istanbul and the entire population continue to witness practices that may not occur even in third-world countries.
A de facto state of emergency has been declared in Istanbul. Ekrem İmamoğlu’s house was surrounded by dozens of water cannon vehicles that are used for anti-terror purposes, and main roads were blocked. Moreover, the governorate of Istanbul banned protests in the city, and social media access was restricted across the country.
Indeed, we would like to underline that none of the unlawfulness, oppression, detentions and arrests, especially the trustee appointments, which we have been experiencing one after another for months, including the detention of İmamoğlu, are coincidental.
Since the very beginning of their period in power, the rulers of the country have been trying to implement the “Slavery Harmonisation Programme” that covers the whole society, particularly the working people.
The pre-requisite for the implementation of this program is to create a country where democracy, law, justice and the most fundamental rights, especially the rights of labor, are abolished.
For this reason, the political power has been saying, “We want servants who will obey our power” and opening new chapters for everyone in the “acceptable citizen guide” in line with their power for 23 years.
For 23 years they have been saying, “For us, a journalist who does not write anything other than what we say, who praises our government is acceptable.
They say, “For us, it is acceptable if a worker does not speak out against working conditions that amount to slavery, wages below the hunger limit, and considers even a workplace murder as fate.s
They say, “For us, a trade unionist is not the one who seeks the rights of workers and labourers, but the one who stands hand and foot in front of us, the one who is more royalist than the king, the one who is a partisan is acceptable.”
They say, “For us, it is not acceptable for women to fight for equality and justice, but for women to submit to their husbands and families despite the femicides, harassment and violence they are subjected to, and to be part of cheap, flexible labour in employment.”
For 23 years they have been saying, “No one should object to our system, no one should try to claim their rights. Otherwise, no matter who it is, we will silence them through investigations, detentions, oppression and arrests.
Thus, the goal of the current government from the very beginning has been to create a country where poverty, injustice and lawlessness prevail and where the rights of labour are ignored.
For this purpose, an authoritarian system has been built step by step for years, where every word coming out of the mouth of a single person is considered an edict. A system of legal abnormalities based on completely fabricated, distorted documents and hollow allegations has been created.
At the point we have reached, anyone who objects to the current authoritarian system, who opposes the role of “being a willing servant of the power” assigned to him/her, is made the target of this strange order.
Thus, they think that they will leave the people and labourers breathless, break their will and make them consent to the existing order.
They want to intimidate every area where social opposition will rise against the economic, social and political crises we are going through.
Moreover, they want all of us, the whole society, not to object to this dark picture, to keep silent, to obey their power.
Today, the justification of the operation in which Imamoğlu, the Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, was taken into custody as “urban reconciliation” has demonstrated a point that we have been underlining for months.
Those who have assumed the role of the masters of oppression and tyranny are today most afraid of millions of people coming together against the strange order they have created.
Therefore, the only way out of this darkness into which the whole society has been pushed is for millions of people who are crushed between the gears of the poverty, injustice and lawlessness created by the political power to stand shoulder to shoulder.
All governments that oppress, use violence and subjugate society eventually take their place in the dustbin of history.
Today, the only way out against those who feed on lawlessness, exploitation, oppression and violence is to increase solidarity and struggle for an equal, free and peaceful democratic future for our country.
For this, we call on all our friends to struggle to prevent this dark picture with a general line of resistance.
And as the last word we say
No Liberation Alone, Either All Together or None of Us!
KESK Executive Committee