Uca: Arresting Guven is political decision, it targets our will

Last Monday, a Turkish court sentenced the parliamentarian Laila Guven in absentia to 22 years, to be arrested that same evening in the city of Amed.

The 56-year-old Guven, was arrested in 2018 because she termed the Turkish attack on Afrin, as an "occupation", and when she was detained, she announced late the same year 200-day-long hunger strike to lift the isolation on the leader Abdullah Ocalan.

In the context, ANHA's News Agency interviewed the HDP's parliamentarian, the text reads:

* Laila Guven a capable female figure of peace in Turkey. What does her arrest mean?

Guven is a parliamentarian and co-chair of the Democratic Society Conference (KCD). She has struggled for Free Women Freedom and her people before being in the Parliament or chaired KCD, but since she was a mayor. When the verdict was announced against her, she did not flee, this was a response to the ruling against her. Everyone knows, her immunity was lifted, and she was arrested at that time, but she was released then.

For the Kurdish people, Guven is not only the co-chair of the KCD, a parliamentarian or a politician, but she is a pioneering in lifting the isolation imposed in Imrali and made great sacrifices for that.

The court ruling represents blocking the way before Kurds to politics. For some time now, the state unjustly targets our people and party, to keep us away from the political struggle and escalate the war. We have seen the response of the Erdogan of Turkey, and it seems that the ruling was approved by the Law Courts.

We reject the ruling, support Guven's struggle

* Why are Kurdish politicians, especially women targeted in Bakur Kurdistan and Turkey?

Kurdish women had leading in all levels of struggle, in hunger strike campaigns. After 2015, all struggle was pioneered by women. For a long time, the state seeks to eliminate the women's movement, obliterate and enslave her. The Kurdish women's movement made great sacrifices, so women are targeted as part of a plan that not only affects the free women's movement TJA, but rather Rosa’s organization and all leaders in a clear message that involve: Women, don’t approach the politics.

* As a comrade of the militant Guven, what is your position on her arrest? 

This ruling is a political, we reject it as companions who have been fighting together for many years, and went through the most difficult times, our response is different, whether it is Laila Guven, me or any companion of us, we are all Guven.

The ruling against Guven, recognized women's struggle and right in all, so we will escalate her struggle, rally around her. On that basis, Guven said: “Wherever our struggle is found, it will escalate, inside or outside.” Guven is a strong and bold woman, who carried out 200-day-long hunger strike, in order to lift the isolation, this gives us strength, we are proud that we fight side by side and pledge that we will escalate our struggle till Guven released.

* Can this ruling be described as political genocide, and what will you do?

Since 2015, the state has been planning to eradicate the gains of the Kurds to assure them that "no matter what you are politicians and militants, we will get you all" to spread terror in society.

Todays' rulings are political, because after her hunger strike, she never calmed down, and when she was detained, she struggled in every arena, which prompted the government to fear Guven's name, so political genocide is not born today.

* What is required of the democratic forces in Turkey to stop targeting politicians?

It is not the first time in Turkey that a parliamentarian or politician has been arrested. Our co-presidency (former) Figen Yüksekdağ and Salahuddin Demirtaş, our parliamentarians and mayors of our municipalities, and thousands of our companions are detained today. Not to remain silent about it, as there is a big difference between Turkish parliamentarians and the Kurds, so how was a CHP parliamentarian released and his file accepted, while the file of Leyla Guven and Musa Varslaroglu were not accepted.

Today we see that the silence of civil society and societal organizations increases the intensity of political genocide and widens the circle of attacks. Therefore, we are facing fierce attacks and a nation witnessing isolation, so no one should remain silent about it. Today Laila is Guven, and it is possible that another party's representatives will be stripped of membership tomorrow; our party and people are targeted daily. Everyone who views himself democratic and remains silent, will be subjected to the same matter, so everyone must reject this.

* To stop the Turkish state's policies against the Kurds, political detainees inside prisons are organizing a hunger strike campaign, how do you evaluate this strike and what is required of the Kurdish people?

As you know, prisons in this period have become the most torture places, and detainees are exposed to attacks, and on the other hand, in the time of Corona, the perpetrators of rape, harassment and the mafia were released, in return, the detained politicians were kept in order to continue the genocide against society.

Every prison has become a cemetery, from which funerals come out every day, so the sick lose their lives, and instead of protecting the detainees from the Coronavirus, hundreds have been infected, even health care problems increase day by day, as patients with chronic diseases suffer from many problems from being exposed to cutting off the water to recording what is happening In the detainees' rooms with the camera, all this is targeting the detainees, not to mention the attempts to liquidate and end the resistance in prisons, as they want the detainee to be weak and without will.

However, detainees can resist this torture, and with the activities of hunger strikes, they cannot remain silent and lift the isolation.

Since no solutions were found abroad, the detainees organize hunger strikes activities inside, and as such, it requires us as Kurds and sons of this people to circumvent and respect the strikers' choice, and support their struggle.

And if we remain silent about the isolation imposed in the detention centers, especially on Ocalan, Imrali status will be generalized in the future to all detainees, so everyone must not remain silent, so that the effectiveness of the hunger strike reaches its goals, the families of the detainees and the national and curator families must supports the strikers and tightens their hands, so that their strike becomes ours, and from here we salute their effectiveness, and we pledge to elevate and escalate our resistance for their freedom.

 (A)

ANHA