Kurdish reality can’t be changed, says BDP

ŞANLIURFA - Doğan News Agency

Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş speaks during a rally yesterday in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa. DHA photo

Neither the police nor batons nor tear gas can alter the reality of Kurdistan, said the co-leader of the opposition Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Selahattin Demirtaş at a rally in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa yesterday.

“For instance, there is a reality of Kurdistan, you cannot alter that. Your police, batons and [tear] gas cannot change that. There is a reality called the Kurdish people, and there is their mother tongue. You cannot change that either,” BDP leader Demirtaş said.

Authorities have arrested some 6,200 BDP members over the past three years, Demirtaş said. We are the ones who insist on a peaceful and democratic solution despite all the repression we face, while the AKP government insists on massacres, arrests and genocide, he added. “We want freedom for [jailed PKK leader] Öcalan. That is why we [occupy] squares and fields. We are going to sit down, talk and frame the constitution together, but we are going to do all this without any repression or prohibitions. For that reason, we are never going to kneel before you,” he said.