South Sudan.. Moral polemic after the video of the president’s unpleasant situation was spread

On Thursday, the Turkish Parliament witnessed a vote by which the membership of the Kurdish member of the People’s Democratic Party, Samra Gozal, was terminated “due to absenteeism” and failure to attend six meetings in a month. PKK”. listed on the list of terrorists.

The vote showed that 330 deputies voted “yes” and 42 voted “no” electronically. While the vice-president of the Syria parliament Saadi Bilgeish announced the result and that the decision to withdraw became a matter of effectiveness, “HDP” MPs responded by banging on seats and chanting slogans and slogans of solidarity with “Guzal”, which is “the will of the people”.

Representatives of the “People’s Party” also started a campaign on social networks, through which they expressed their disapproval of the decision to withdraw, and that what happened was a “political decision”, criticizing the representatives who voted in favor, who were divided between the ruling party , “Prvade i development” and its ally, “Movement”. Nationalism”, as well as the nationalist “Jeed Party” and some representatives of the secular “Republican People’s Party”.

When voting on the revocation of membership, the Parliament relied on Articles 84 and 138 of the Rulebook on the Revocation of the Membership of a Member of Parliament in the event that he absents himself from sessions six times without reason, and therefore his presidency prepared a memorandum that was forwarded to the relevant committees, and a final decision was made .

A story that started with pictures

The action against “Guzal” was not without an introduction, but it was preceded by a series of stops, the first of which was at the beginning of this year, in January. At that time, media close to the government published pictures of her with one of the “PKK” militants in the Qandil mountains, called Volkan Bora.

The publication of the photos at the time caused great controversy in political circles in the country, and according to media reports, they were obtained from Bora’s phone, after he was killed in a security operation in the Adiyaman region in 2017, while the reasons that prevented their publication were not known in that time. .

Gozal responded to the photo leak with a statement in which she said she was exposed to a “slander campaign launched against her on social networks and television, based on some photos the government gave to journalists.”

In a press release, the representative defended herself that “the pictures date back to ancient times” and that she was in an emotional relationship with “Bora” before the election to the Turkish parliament. “I tried to reach him like many people, who tried to see their children, mothers, fathers and loved ones in the positive atmosphere of the solution and the peace process that started between 2013-2015.”

“When I went to the said area, I was greeted by two women who told me that I had to wear my clothes for security reasons. After waiting for a while, I found out that he was there and we talked,” the deputy continued. .

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government accuses the HDP of links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has led to the trial of thousands of its members and some of its leaders in recent years, but the Kurdish party denies these links exist.

For more than a year, the party has been facing court cases for its shutdown and dissolution.

The latest developments in this lawsuit were a few days ago, when Turkish Public Prosecutor Bekir Shaheen filed a request to “close and freeze party accounts,” because “the organic connection between the People’s Democratic Party and terrorist organizations continues,” as he said.

“Remove immunity and arrest”

The story of MP Gozal did not stop only at the publication of pictures and the press release in which she defends her position.

Two months later (in March 2022), a presidential memorandum on the lifting of immunity was prepared, and in the second of the same month, the Parliament approved the lifting of immunity, so the State Attorney’s Office launched an investigation with her and issued an arrest warrant. warrant against her, based on the charges against her.

The memorandum was issued after the deputy refused to appear in front of the State Prosecutor’s Office to give a statement, and the address of her residence was not found, reports Anadolu Agency. While the case remained deadlocked, while the deputy was in hiding, the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced her arrest last September.

And the Turkish Minister of Interior, Suleiman Soylu, announced in early September that “Guzal was arrested with a forged passport, accompanied by AG He worked on smuggling irregular migrants, and another worked on propaganda for banned armed organizations.”

He said: “The arrest operation was carried out by the National Intelligence Service, in cooperation with the Security Directorate in the city of Istanbul, in a successful operation on the road towards the city of Edirne (West) on the border with Greece and Bulgaria, because he was arrested on the way to the city of Edirne.”

What is behind the projection?

Since 2016, about 15 representatives of the “People’s Party” have been recalled from Parliament, and in recent years there have been several investigations against a large number of its prominent members, who were tried and imprisoned on charges of terrorism.

The party’s former leader, Selahattin Demirtas, one of Turkey’s most prominent politicians, has been in prison for more than four years.

When it comes to the “People’s Party”, its active role in the domestic political plan of the country cannot be ignored, especially in the last parliamentary elections held in 2018.

In that period, the party won almost 12 percent of the vote, and its co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş won more than 8 percent of the vote in the presidential race.

Meanwhile, with the decline of Gozal’s membership, the Kurdish party’s number of members in parliament has dwindled to 56 out of the 67 that won the 2018 parliamentary elections.

Political analyst and “People’s Party” member Barakat Qar says the leaked photos of MP Gozal were before she went up the mountain (meaning Qandil), and before she became a deputy. “She was in love, engaged to that person and so on.”

And Qar adds on the “Al-Hurra” website: “Six years ago she was defamed, and it was based on pictures as a crime and that the MP is a terrorist. During the recent period, the Parliament did not find enough justification to remove her immunity, until immunity waiver in March, and all parties supported this procedure”.

“She is now in prison and on trial. Unfortunately, when she was convicted, she was stripped of her membership based on her absence from the Council. How is that possible? She is in prison and has not yet been sentenced.”

And Qar continues: “The decision to revoke her membership is unfair, and it was made while she was in prison. What happened has nothing to do with rights, close or far. This decision is political.”

In turn, the academic and political researcher, Muhannad Hafez Oglu, says: “After things come to a conclusion of court decisions, the work of political power comes. It is logical that the decision is based on a political decision because it has a judicial and legal basis.”

“In the end, everything that happens is in the process of common law and the internal system of the parliament and the constitution,” Hafizoglu added to Al-Hurr.

The political scientist believed that “the judiciary is the one that controls everything in the country, so we see that the issue of dissolving the People’s Party is being delayed, although there are many calls at the party and street level to carry out this procedure.”

For his part, Barakat Qar explains that the last procedure to ban the account of the “People’s Party” will not last long, and it will be followed by a lawsuit to dissolve the latter. Qar says: “Perhaps it takes time to dissolve the party, and as a precaution they are trying to undermine the support of the national treasury to the People’s Party, in order to weaken it in the near future.”

Human rights groups often accuse Erdogan of using the judiciary as a “political tool”, especially after the dismissal of thousands of judges following an attempted coup in 2016, which the Turkish president and government deny, saying the judiciary is “independent in the country”.

A week ago, a Turkish court sentenced the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, to more than two years in prison for the case of “insulting an official of the Supreme Election Commission”, a decision that shook the country’s domestic scene and caused anger and criticism from opposition parties, and the reverberations still exist.