Diyarbakır mayor Gültan Kışanak, a member of the Democratic Regions' Party (DBP [7]), and her co-mayor Fırat Anlı were arrested by Turkish authorities Oct. 30 as part of an anti-terrorism investigation. The Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor's Office charged Kışanak with "being a member of an armed terrorist group," while Anlı was charged with "trying to separate land under the state's sovereignty." Ayla Akat Ata, a former lawmaker of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), forerunner of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP [8]), was also detained at a protest against the arrest of the co-mayors. Akat was charged with "managing a terrorist organization." An HDP leader called Akat's detention a "kidnapping, not an arrest." Said HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş: "If you call it an arrest, then you accept that the law made a decision and the legal mechanism works. Arrest is a legal term, but there is no law. This is abduction and kidnapping." (Hurriyet Daily News [9], Daily Sabah [10])
The arrests are part of the ongoing repression [11] against the growing system of political autonomy in Turkey's Kurdish east—disguised as a crackdown on the PKK [12] guerillas, and taking place in an atmosphere of terror [13] in the aftermath of July's attempted coup. As a part of that autonomous system, a new policy adopted by the Kurdish-led HDP and DBP has two co-mayors [14], one female and one male, running the towns these parties control.
