Turkey: major attacks on alleged MKP supporters

3 December 2012. A World to Win News Service. A bulletin from the Federation for Democratic Rights news agency has reported a very serious wave of arrests and other blows against the popular resistance in Turkey. The bulletin, dated 13 November, said, "Anxious about its fraying control over the mass struggle amid a social crisis, the state has carried out sweeping raids against democratic mass organizations in our country, in particular the Federation for Democratic Rights, in the cities of Dersim, Ankara Izmir, Istanbul, Adana, Mersin, Kayseri, Zonduldak, Antalya, Usak, Sivas, Diyarbakir, Canakkale and Isparta. Close to 60 FDR members and sympathizers were taken into custody in a simultaneous sweep. A large number of houses and meeting centres were ransacked. "Among those seized were central representatives and members of the FDR and Izmir representative of The People's Daily newspaper. We learned from the official statements that these simultaneous operations in 14 cities were conducted under the supervision of the offices of the top state prosecutors in Malatya, Izmir. Ankara and Adana.... "Violations of the rule of law and legal procedures have been rampant, according to the defence lawyers. They have warned that 'What appears to be afoot is the cooking up of charges to allege relationships between the democratic activities of the FDR members arrested and the activities of the Maoist Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army (MKP-HKO).''' The accusations against those arrested are very serious and could bring long prison terms because of highly inflated charges. For instance, the punishment for the alleged throwing of a Molotov cocktail in a street demonstration has been made equivalent to that for a rocket attack on a police station. During this same time frame, reports in the Turkish media news indicate a serious blow to armed combatants of the HKO. Approximately 25 people were taken into custody after a government military operation in the central Kurdistan region. This coordinated assault came at a time when the AKP regime led by Recep Tayip Erdogan is losing some of its hold on the masses and facing increasing resentment and opposition. Erdogan's main demagoguery, the promise of an "opening" to the demands of the Kurdish people, has turned out to be hollow, causing a new wave of anger and resistance among Kurds. Another component in this atmosphere is the re-emergence of government threats to hang imprisoned Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan. As the government blatantly turned its back on the negotiations with the PKK, veering away from even the promise of such an "opening", there have been increasingly major military clashes between the PKK's armed peshmergas and the Turkish army. At the time of the previously mentioned arrests, there was a widespread hunger strike in the prisons. This was initiated by PKK prisoners and joined by other inmates, and people outside also joined in solidarity in some of the major cities in Turkey and even some cities in Europe. The prisoners received very widespread popular support. All this is especially problematic for the Turkish regime's ambitions to play a bigger role in the push and pull to reconfigure the Middle East. It is in the face of an unstable situation internally and externally that the regime decided to deal severe blows to the people's struggle.