On 8 February, two days after the devastating earthquakes in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited one of its worst affected cities and said: “This period is a period of unity.” He went on to denounce criticisms of his government’s earthquake response “simply for the sake of political interests.”

But Erdoğan is doing exactly what he purports to criticise. Apart from confiscating and monopolising aid and assistance to prop up his support at the upcoming elections, his government continues to prosecute politically motivated cases against the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) amid the national crisis.

On 17 March 2021, Turkey’s Prosecutor General's Office first filed a lawsuit for a political ban of the HPD before Turkey’s Constitutional Court. As a consequence, on 5 January 2023 — around half a year before the election date — the Constitutional Court ruled to freeze the HDP’s bank accounts and block its share of public funds for the electoral campaign, amounting to 539 million Turkish lira ($28.7m).

This trial to ban the HDP is now entering its final phase. On 11 April, just a few weeks before the elections, the Constitutional Court will hear HDP co-chairs Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar’s arguments against the suspension of the party’s funding and the attempt to dissolve it. And it could make its final ruling at any point before the elections.

The closure case is the culmination of a state campaign against the HDP that began in 2015 when it first entered parliament as an independent party. Since then, thousands of party members, including its former co-chairs and several elected mayors, have been detained on flimsy pretexts.

The possibility that the country’s third largest party in parliament — representing more than 10% of the popular vote in the past two general elections — could be permanently banned so close to the upcoming elections places Turkish democracy in dire jeopardy.

The peoples of Turkey must be able to freely and fairly elect their representatives — including the HDP. The party strives for a democratic and inclusive Turkey, with freedom, equality and justice for all. It stands for ecology, women’s emancipation, and the peaceful co-existence of different ethnic and religious groups.

If the Erdoğan government dissolves the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), it will likewise dissolve the foundations of democracy in Turkey.

We defend the HDP’s right to freedom of association, expression, peaceful assembly and participation in the upcoming elections. It is time to end the legal attacks against the HDP now, once and for all.

Signed,

Noam Chomsky, Professor, United States

Jeremy Corbyn, Member of Parliament, United Kingdom

Janine Wissler, Member of the Bundestag; Co-chair of Die Linke, Germany

Yanis Varoufakis, Member of the Hellenic Parliament, Greece

Niki Ashton, Member of Parliament for Churchill-Keewatinook Aski, Canada

Jean-Luc Melenchon, Fmr Member of the National Assembly, France

Leïla Chaibi, Member of European Parliament, France

Juliano Medeiros, President of the Party of Socialism and Freedom, Brazil

Idoia Villanueva, Member of the European Parliament; Head of Podemos International Secretariat, Spain

Manu Pineda, Member of the European Parliament, Spain

Nikolaj Villumsen, Member of the European Parliament, Denmark

Zarah Sultana, Member of Parliament, United Kingdom 

Apsana Begum, Member of Parliament, United Kingdom

John McDonnell, Member of Parliament, United Kingdom

Marc Botenga, Member of the European Parliament, Belgium

Ericka Ñanco Vásquez, Mapuche Member of the Chamber of Deputies, Chile

Nadia Whittome, Member of Parliament, United Kingdom

Sophia Chikirou, Member of the National Assembly, France

Andy McDonald, Member of Parliament, United Kingdom

Gonzalo Winter, Member of the Chamber of Deputies, Chile

Arnaud Le Gall, Member of the National Assembly, France 

Beth Winter, Member of Parliament, United Kingdom

Amanda Della Ventura, Member of the Mercosur Parliament; Member of the Senate, Uruguay

Ricardo Canese, Member of the Mercosur Parliament, Paraguay

Adolfo Mendoza Leigue, Member of the Mercosur Parliament, Bolivia

Sandra Pereira, Member of the European Parliament, Portugal

Daniel Caggiani, Member of the Senate, Uruguay

Manon Aubry, Member of the European Parliament, France

Alejandro Sánchez, Member of the Senate, Uruguay

András Jámbor, Member of Parliament, Hungary

Fabian Molina, Member of the Swiss National Council, Switzerland

Martin Schirdewan, Member of the European Parliament, Germany

Chris MacManus, Member of the European Parliament, Ireland

Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Member of Parliament, United Kingdom

Martina Michels, Member of the European Parliament, Germany

Sebastián Sabini, Member of the Senate, Uruguay

Daniel Olesker, Member of the Senate, Uruguay

Stelios Kouloglou, Member of the European Parliament, Greece

Özlem Demirel, Member of the European Parliament, Germany

Miguel Urbán, Member of the European Parliament, Spain

Helmut Scholz, Member of the European Parliament, Germany

Sandra Lazo, Member of the Senate, Uruguay

Cornelia Ernst, Member of the European Parliament, Germany

Nathalie Oberweis, Member of the Chamber of Deputies, Luxembourg

Ana Merelis, Member of the Mercosur Parliament, Bolivia

Liliam Kechichián, Member of the Senate, Uruguay

Richard Leonard, Member of the Scottish Parliament, United Kingdom

Sara Condori, Member of the Mercosur Parliament, Bolivia

Myriam Cecchhetti, Member of the Chamber of Deputies, Luxembourg

Walden Bello, Fmr Member of the House of Representatives, Philippines

Tauriq Jenkins, High Commissioner of the Goringhaicona KhoiKhoin Indigenous Traditional Council, South Africa

Martha Ruiz, Member of the Mercosur Parliament, Bolivia

Maite Mola, Head of International Relations, Party of the European Left, Spain

Christian Rodriguez, Head of International Relations, La France Insoumise, France

Ammar Ali Jan, Haqooq-e-Khalq Movement, Pakistan

Mametlwe Sebei, President of General Industries Workers Union of South Africa (GIWUSA), South Africa

Nilab Ahmadi, City Council Member of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Amineh Kakabaveh, Fmr Member of Parliament, Sweden

Srećko Horvat, Philosopher, Croatia

Kerem Schamberger, Media researcher, Germany