The HDP’s Nihat Akdoğan: The whole country is losing

Mahmut Oral

The HDP’s Hakkâri MP, Nihat Akdoğan, who was detained on 7 November in the operation against the HDP and was released on Wednesday, spoke to Cumhuriyet. Akdoğan, who was released from Silivri Prison No 9 where our newspaper’s columnists and managers are also being held on detention, commented, ‘Silivri No 9 heads the list of prisons at which solitary confinement is practiced the most. We stayed in single-person cells for ninety days. Opportunities to read books and newspapers, exercise and go out on joint activities were virtually non-existent. The population there is many times higher than some sub-provinces. Despite the high population, we were only able to greet the birds flying over the prison.’

Like a junta period

Akdoğan, stating that he saw our newspaper’s detained columnists and managers from a distance while attending a lawyer’s visit, said, ‘We tried to get and read Cumhuriyet newspaper and we found out there what the detained colleagues were going through. You have taken a heavy blow – both Cumhuriyet newspaper and the families of those inside. It is most disturbing for families to be broken up and press and broadcasting outlets to suffer ill treatment such that can only be encountered in junta periods. Above all, for people who do not at all deserve this to suffer so much injustice in this process and for those in this country who speak of democratic life, human rights and the law to be filled with such untiring rancour and rage quite simply causes loss for us all. It is not, as they imagine, just one group that loses, but the whole country.’

Is the press free?

Akdoğan, saying, ‘Who can say that, when Nihat Akdoğan was under duress and he was thrown inside, the other side was free?’ commented, ‘The same applies to the press. When Cumhuriyet newspaper and Özgürlükçü Demokrasi, Azadiya Welat or Birgün and Evrensel newspapers are under duress, are the other papers free and is there press freedom? Society’s conscience is plagued by the HDP’s co-chairs, MPs, mayors and managers and our members being inside, and Cumhuriyet newspaper’s key staff being inside.’

The scheme had been hatched

Akdoğan, commenting on the referendum results with the words, ‘It passed in the face of fraud and all that junk,’ said, ‘Given a government that says, “The aim was realised,” the party that they went to the poll along with and, on the other hand, a President who says, “If the match ends 1-0 or ends 5-0, it is three points,” it is perfectly clear what was involved. This means that it was a scheme that had been hatched long in advance.’