Claim: All political parties united to oppose 15 July coup attempt

Time to read
1 minute
Read so far

Claim: All political parties united to oppose 15 July coup attempt

2016-09-18 07:32 BST
Posted in:

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Figen Yuksekdag claims all political parties, including HDP, opposed 15 July coup attempt in unison

HDP co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag

The Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP) co-chair Figen Yuksekdag penned an article for Newsweek in which she claimed that all political parties united to oppose the 15 July coup attempt in Turkey, including the HDP.

"It is true that generals, most fortunately, could not seize the power, and the only reason they failed was the united opposition by all political parties and the peoples of Turkey. But today, one part of the society that opposed the coup is under attack: the Kurds and those associated with the People’s Democratic Party (HDP)," she wrote.

However, the comments of other co-chair of the HDP, Selahattin Demirtas, on the people who took to the streets to protest the coup attempt in its first days, which resulted in the deaths of 246 people and left 1,540 wounded, went unmentioned in Yuksekdag's narrative. Demirtas labeled them as "AKP mobs", "reactionists" and likened the protestors to "ISIS members".

In an interview in the aftermath of the failed coup, he was reported as saying, "Of course the society is against the putschists, but the crowds AKP is letting out on the streets is performing reactionist demonstrations, and bear resemblance with jihadists, ISIS members, so the broader society cannot demonstrate their anti-coup stance on the streets and squares. Only the crowds organized as mobs by AKP are flooding into the squares."

Demirtas also said that what took place on 15 July 2016 was a "Coup attempt of the putschists against putschists...", calling the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) victory in the November 1 snap elections last year a "civilian coup".

The AK Party gained 49.5 percent of the vote in the elections after the political parties which gained seats in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) in the June 7 elections failed to form a coalition and an administrative void emerged.