HDP's parliamentary group meeting attended by European ambassadors
HDP held its first parliamentary group meeting today (November 8) after the arrest of its co-chairs Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ and 10 MPs. The meeting was broadcasted live from Facebook and Preiscope.
Opposition parties ÖDP (Freedom and Solidarity Party) and EMEP (Labour Party), along with TMMOB (Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects), KESK (Confederation of Public Wokers’ Unions), and DİSK (Progressive Workers’ Union) had their representatives attend the meeting.
The meeting was also monitored by diplomats and representatives of some of the European countries. Having attended the meeting at the Parliament, Ambassador of Belgium to Turkey Marc Trentescau said: “Detention of parliamentarians is a very serious subject matter. We came to see what they will say here today.”
In addition to ambassador of Belgium, representatives of Austria, Luxembourg, Greece, Finland, and EU’s Turkey delegation were also present at the meeting.
After the letters of arrested co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ sent from jail were read, Diyarbakır MP Çağlar Demirel gave a speech on behalf of the party members. Defining the arrests as a ‘political coup’, Demirel asserted HDP representatives were actually ‘taken hostage.’
While giving his speech, Demirel also noted that the broadcast of Meclis Tv (Parliament’s TV station) was cut during the group meeting of HDP. Demirel added: “Those who have been trying to turn the Presidential Palace into a branch of the Parliament think that they would be able to dismiss us from democratic politics.
Previous speeches of co-chairs Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ were shown from an ovrehead projector and the meeting was concluded with a message to President Erdoğan where the slogan of ‘we are not going to let you become the president’ was repeated.
Source: https://www.birgun.net/haber-detay/hdp-tekrarladi-seni-baskan-yaptirmayacagiz-134726.html