Turkey: What happened on 15th July : We will not surrender to AKP Fascism

What happened on 15th July?

We will not surrender to AKP fascism!

Nor can the people surrender to the AKP declaration of a state of emergency!

On the night of 15th July, the clash between imperialism’s two puppets resulted in a coup attempt and since it was suppressed, a show of strength by the AKP.

The roots of the coup go back to 2012 and are a result of the power struggle between the AKP and Fethullah Gülen, who for a time was ensconced within the AKP. Both are collaborators with imperialism, both exploit the Islamic feelings of the people and both groups collaborated up to 2012 and deepened the exploitation of the peoples of Turkey.

The source of the clash between the two is who will profit more from turning the wheel of exploitation!

For this reason all the talk in the media about democracy is nothing but lies!

The commanders who in Roboski murdered 35 people and are now called “putschists who had betrayed the homeland” supported Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the end, and the commanders who in this period were highly decorated for their services by Recep Tayyip Erdogan are now being called putschists.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan for that matter cannot be anointed as some apostle of democracy since the coup attempt. Since the day he came to power, the blood of every one among our people murdered, tortured in the prisons, shot dead in their homes is on his hands!

And the chief responsibility for the massacres in Kurdistan lies with none other than President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The peoples of Turkey know coups well.

They experienced the 1980 coup and know very well that a people that resisted this coup and was massacred and that the AKP which was “elected” and brought to power with the support of imperialism did nothing to investigate the 1980 coup.

And even in the decisions taken after 15th July there are no moves to investigate the 1980 junta.

15th July… 240 people killed...
8,660 people detained...
6,319 soldiers, 1,481 judges and prosecutors and 650 civilians have been detained, 990 people jailed.

In Turkey as a whole proceedings have been started against 2,843 judges and prosecutors.
979 judges and prosecutors have been detained, 632 jailed.

Among members of the State High Court and Court of Appeal, 113 judges and prosecutors have been detained and 112 imprisoned!
48 members of the State High Court have been fired!

In three days 55,403 civil servants have been fired.
21,738 workers in the National Education Ministry have been fired…

In private teaching establishments, 21,000 teachers have had their teaching licences revoked.
In both central and provincial organisations of the Interior Ministry, 8,777 personnel have been dismissed from duty...

The resignation of 1,577 deans has been demanded in YÖK (translator’s note: Higher Education Council, itself a state control body in higher education created after the 1980 coup).
4 university rectors have been detained!

And after a ministerial meeting on July 20, a three-month state of emergency has been declared!
So, in purges throughout Turkey, bans on going out into the street, executions on the street in broad daylight, bans on publication, searches, the closing of associations, and CONTROL and BANS of every kind of film, song, poem and book are being LEGALISED!

All these decisions and practices differ in no way from the 12th September (1980) junta!

We do not recognise the AKP state of emergency declaration!

We will not surrender to fascism!!

Halk Cephesi (People’s Front) – International Relations Committee
21st July 2016