Turkey's post-coup crackdown targets Kurdish parties, Analyst says

Ever since the failed coup attempt against the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more than three months ago, the country has been conducting a relentless campaign of crackdown against political opponents. The crackdown, which has seen the arrest of tens of thousands of people, is now targeting media and opposition parties. In the latest post-coup roundup this past week, journalists from the main opposition daily Cumhuriyet were thrown behind bars on charges of links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen. Turkish police also arrested several prominent figures of the pro-Kurdish opposition People's Democratic Party (HDP) as part of an ongoing counter-terrorism investigation. Press TV put the issue up for debate on a program attended by two panelists.

Editor-in-chief of American Herald Tribune, Anthony Hall, asserted that the government of President Erdogan has used the failed coup as an opportunity to beef up its pressure on opposition parties, including HDP, and ultimately tilt them out of the country’s political process once and for all.

“It is menacing Turkish democracy such as it existed. This is part of a very multifaceted crackdown which may be in response to a real coup or it may be a kind of phantom coup, a kind of engineered manufactured coup to give a license for the crackdown on tens of thousands of university professors who are being let go or suspended; on judges, on public servants of different sorts, on opposition parties - and that's the main story right now - on opposition journalists of various forms,” Hall told 'The Debate' program.

He went on to call Erdogan “a dictator” who should be deposed by the people for his repressions and human rights violations.

“People are saying Sultan Erdogan and he's going to be the sultan. Dictatorship and violations of human rights and incarcerating people without proper charges are all the marks of a dictator gone out of control and he has got to be reined in by the Turkish people themselves,” he underlined.

However, the other guest on the show accused the HDP of openly backing terrorist groups such as PKK, which has caused the Turkish government to lose its trust in all Kurdish parties.

Political observer, Hatem Yavuz, said that the Turkish voters supported the HDP party in the last election, but when they entered the parliament they began to openly support PKK and YPG.

Addressing the other panelist, Yavus inquired, “I'm wondering if any political party in the United States or any Western [country] did propaganda supporting the PKK, or [what they themselves regard as terrorists] ISIS or Daesh, whatever you call it, I'm wondering what would they do to those parties? Since you're in Toronto, what would you do in Canada if a political party supported ISIS?”

“We are in a state of emergency and things are tense here. We are at war internally and externally. So, I think what the Turkish government [is doing] right now may be a little bit harsh, may be a little bit tough, but it will correct itself as it corrected many times before and in the very near future you will see a lot of corrections," he concluded.

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