Kurdish mothers who have been staging a sit-in protest in front of the pro-PKK Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) headquarters in Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakır province to demand the return of their abducted children are preparing to go to France to convey their experiences and the PKK's brutalities to a larger audience.
Today marks the 59th day of protests, which currently involves the participation of 55 families. In the past two months, families received support from almost all segments of society including politicians, foundations, associations, writers and journalists who visited them and helped them to raise their voices.
With the goal to raise their voice outside the borders of Turkey, four of the participating families are getting ready to visit Strasbourg to talk about how their children were abducted by the PKK and the ties between the terrorist group and the HDP.
Facing public reaction and judicial probes over its ties to the PKK, the HDP is under pressure by the growing civilian protest movement launched by the mothers and local families. The sit-in has been ongoing since Sept. 3.
Initially, a lone protest was started by mother Hacire Akar in front of the HDP provincial headquarters in Diyarbakır last month. Akar wanted to see the return of her 21-year-old son Mehmet Akar, who had been missing for three days after he was abducted by the PKK terrorist group. Following her sit-in, and with the help of security forces in Diyarbakır, Akar was finally reunited with her son.
“My funeral may be held here but I will not stop protesting. Winter has come, it’s getting cold yet I am still sitting here and resisting it,” Latife Ödümlü, whose 22 years-old son, Özgür, was abducted while studying chemistry in college. Ödümlü said she has two other children, one of whom is a soldier and the other one is being taken care of by her neighbors as she participates in the protest. She noted that she has been in Diyarbakır since Sept. 10. Ödümlü said she has been to Iran and Iraq, where the terrorist group has camps, to find her son, but both of her attempts, unfortunately, failed as nobody knew the whereabouts of her son.
Another mother, Sevdet Demir said that her son Fatih was abducted four years ago while working at a bakery.
“We went to Iraq and Syria. We have searched for him but we couldn’t find him. In the end, I came here. These [PKK and HDP] are cruel. They do not fear God. They do not send their own children to the mountains. They trick the children of the poor families and send them. This is cruelty,” she said.
Families are accusing the HDP leaders of sacrificing ordinary people's children while providing luxurious lives for their own kids. The photos of party Co-chair Pervin Buldan's son in a luxury car in Paris has become a major point of debate. Other photos showed Buldan's daughter sitting in a cafe in London. Previously, photos of Buldan's son, Neçirvan, showed him resting near a swimming pool by a villa.
Meanwhile, a humanitarian organization from Germany sent tents to the families to protect them from harsh winter conditions.