MERSİN - HDP council members, who were detained right before the meeting to discuss the obligation authority in the AKP's Akdeniz Municipality and were released after the proposal was accepted, stated that they were taken hostage and that they will file a criminal complaint against those who signed the decision.
Mersin Akdeniz Municipality, administrated by the AKP, convened extraordinarily on July 29 with the proposals "Granting the mayor the obligation authority to borrow 50 million TL", "Granting the authorization to sell and rent municipal immovables" and "Turning Yılmaz Güney Park into a dormitory". One day before the meeting in question, on July 28, Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Council members Bedriye Kuş, Nuran Arslan, Mehmet Bitkin, Ali Tanrıverdi and Nevzat Baran were detained. The majority of the opposition were lost with the detention of the HDP council members. Protesting the detentions, HDP, CHP and EMEP Council Members did not participate in the meeting in which the proposals were accepted by AKP Council Members which became the majority. 5 HDP Council Members were released right after the decision. Four of the 16 people detained within the scope of the same investigation were arrested on charges of "being a member of a terrorist organization" and "Propagandising a terrorist organization".
THE ARTICLES REJECTED BY HDP WERE ACCEPTED
HDP Mersin Provincial Co-Chair Bedriye Kuş, who was released after the articles were accepted, stated that the three items in question had been on the agenda before, but they rejected them. Expressing that the parliamentary agenda was postponed until August, but they were detained just before it was going to be discussed, Kuş described the operation against them as a "planned conspiracy". Expressing that this situation is not legal, Kuş noted that the municipality has not served the public for 3 and a half years and that the purpose of their insistence on obligation authority one year before the election is not to serve the public.
'WE WERE TAKEN HOSTAGE'
Kuş said: "If the municipality had not spent their budget on their own advertisements, if they had used the money to serve the public, this debt would not have been necessary. The council did not convene on the first day, it was a decision taken with the current council members on the second day. This is not a legal decision, we will not let it go. What was done to us had no legal basis. It was officially a hostage-situation. We were taken hostage until the proposal was accepted. The accusations against us are allegations that we do not accept.
MA / Mukadder Akyol