'Kurdish people will never be stopped by violence' – HDP Congress meets in Turkey

THERE was an energetic and defiant atmosphere among the thousands of delegates to the left-wing, pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) Congress on Sunday in the Turkish capital, Ankara.

Co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ paid tribute to the hundreds of friends and comrades lost in the massacres in Suruç, Diyarbakir and Ankara as well as those killed on the streets and in their homes in the past months under military curfew.

● Funerals of people killed during curfew in Cizîr

Yüksekdağ said:

“The Kurdish people have never been and never will be stopped by intimidation and violence.

“The HDP has acted as a bridge between the different peoples of Turkey, which is why the response against us has been so severe. But we have a message for those carrying out the campaign of violence against us – the HDP has not been stopped and we are coming stronger. We are coming from Cizre, from Sur, from Taksim, from the suburbs of Istanbul.”

● Turkish special police with armoured vehicles raid HDP party office in Beyoğlu (İstanbul) on 8 January

Demirtaş said the founding mission of the HDP – to bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict based on social justice and decentralised democracy – would not be abandoned despite provocation.

“There are two ways to bring about unity in a state. The first, chosen by the AKP, is essentially fascism – to render everyone with a single dominant identity by force. The second is to create a union based on pluralist democracy.

“We are calling on everyone, inside the Turkish Parliament and outside of it, who has an interest in preventing the first scenario from being realised, to work together with us towards the democratisation of this state.”