İzmir attack an organized lynching attempt, say DTP officials

A convoy carrying DTP members was stoned by residents in Turkey’s western city of İzmir, one of the cities with the highest number of migrants from the Kurdish-dominated cities of the East on Sunday.

The statement also criticized an Anatolia news agency report covering the incident, which referred to the attackers as “a group of citizens.” Saying the attack was organized earlier and not a group reaction that arose momentarily, they also accused the police of not intervening when the DTP convoy was being attacked.

On Sunday, a DTP convoy of 2,000 vehicles driving back to party headquarters from the Adnan Menderes Airport, where they greeted DTP leader Ahmet Türk, who paid a surprise visit, was stoned by a group of people. The attackers, a group of residents holding Turkish flags as well as sticks and stones, blocked the convoy when it reached the Üçyol crossroad and harassed the drivers whom they believed were also Kurdish. Some witnesses claimed that the group attacked when vehicles on the DTP convoy opened flags of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). However, some have expressed that the violent protest might have been planned ahead as the attack occurred along a road where the Nationalist Movement Party’s (MHP) İzmir office is located. MHP members and members of the Idealist Hearths, an MHP-affiliated youth group, flocked to the scene. Most of the vehicle’s windows were shattered during the protestor’s attack.

Meanwhile, the police opened fire into the air to disperse the crowd. However, DTP members have complained that the police were late in their intervention. They also stated that small-sized gas tanks and other heavy items were defenestrated from nearby buildings. The group did not disperse after the convoy passed through, and they blocked traffic singing the National Anthem. Meanwhile, residents of nearby buildings hung Turkish flags from their windows, observers noted.

A crowd including a large number of women took to the streets. There was later a smaller march in the same street where the earlier protests occurred.

Speaking to his party’s members, DTP leader Türk said he was sorry about the incident. “Today, a group of fascists attacked our convoy as I arrived in İzmir. I invite the police and the governor of the state to do their jobs. Our struggle has always been about freedom and the brotherhood of peoples. However, those who attack us will most certainly be given an apt reply. Our struggle is tantamount to the liberation of the Turkish people as well. However, some are trying to play the peoples of this country against each other.”

In his speech, he also talked about the government’s democratic initiative project, which seeks to expand rights given to Kurds to stop terror attacks. “The PKK has said they are ready to contribute for the process to work and that they are ready to lay down arms,” Türk said.

Incidentally, in an analysis of nationalism in İzmir Star columnist Ergun Babahan wrote about the reasons why city residents are not welcoming newcomers who are often Kurds or who wear headscarves on Sunday, in the morning of the day the attacks occurred. According to Babahan, İzmir “started harboring anger toward those who are different, just like old aristocrats who think they are still important.” He said İzmir was losing its importance with industry-based agriculture and losing importance in the economy. “İzmir is trying to make the Kurds and religious conservatives pay for its losses,” he wrote.