A press statement was held outside the Çand Amed Culture and Congress Centre by the DEM Party’s Democratic Local Governments Board to mark the anniversary of trustee appointments to municipalities.

Those attending included Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality Co-Mayors Serra Bucak and Emin Ay; DEM Party Diyarbakır Provincial Co-Chair Yunus Muratakan; Democratic Regions Party (DBP) Diyarbakır Provincial Co-Chairs Ruçem Vefa Elyakut and Ahmet Doğan; dismissed Co-Mayors of the municipalities of Mardin, Van, Batman and Siirt; DEM Party MPs; district municipality co-mayors; DBB Council Co-Spokespersons Demet Ceylan and Ayhan Karatekin; and council members.

‘The people’s will must be respected’

Speaking at the press statement, Gülistan Sönük, the dismissed Co-Mayor of Batman Municipality, said that the trustee practice had continued for 10 years and had led to economic, social and political crises.

“If the state wants to establish peace, it must take concrete steps. It must put an end to trustee appointments. For a democratic Türkiye to be built, the will of the Kurdish people must be recognised and the usurpation of their democratic rights must come to an end,” she said.

‘A violation of the right to elect and be elected’

Yunus Muratakan, DEM Party Diyarbakır Provincial Co-Chair, stated that the trustee policy constituted a clear violation of the people's right to elect and be elected.

Noting that the practice was not merely an intervention in municipalities, Muratakan said it also targeted the Kurdish people's democratic gains, social organisation, language and culture.

Call for an end to the trustee practice

The statements called for the immediate termination of trustee appointments and demanded guarantees for the democratic autonomy of local government and the people's right to participate directly in governance.

They also called for the removal of obstacles to the rights to education, culture, arts and public services in one's mother tongue. It was further emphasised that women's institutions, cultural centres, mother-tongue institutions and mechanisms for democratic public participation closed during the trustee administration must be reopened.

The demands also included ending pressure on democratic institutions, civil society organisations and the sphere of democratic politics, as well as ensuring a transparent review of transactions involving municipal funds, property and public assets during the trustee period, with full accountability to the public for the use of its resources.