- Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) was assaulted on Sunday as he attended a funeral in Ankara
- A video of the attack showed the CHP leader being mobbed and punched
ISTANBUL: Turkish police on Monday arrested nine people, including a
member of the ruling AKP party, after a mob attack on opposition leader
Kemal Kilicdaroglu that sparked widespread criticism.
Kilicdaroglu, 70, of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) was assaulted
on Sunday in a crowd as he attended a funeral in Ankara for a soldier
killed fighting Kurdish militants in the southeast.
The attack came days after the opposition CHP won Ankara and Istanbul
from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP in March 31 local elections,
seen as a major setback for the ruling party after a decade-and-a-half
in power.
A video of Sunday’s attack showed the CHP leader being mobbed and
punched, then chanting crowds surrounded a house where he was taken for
his protection. The images went viral on social media.
CHP leaders blamed Erdogan’s AKP for provoking the attack and demanded
those detained be held accountable. They called for the interior
minister to resign over the incident.
“This is not an ordinary attack, this is not an ordinary provocation.
This is planned,” CHP Istanbul chief Canan Kaftancioglu told several
thousands of supporters at a rally from the top of a bus.
The crowds chanted slogans “Shoulder to shoulder against Fascism,” and
waved banners reading: “Are you so scared by the CHP’s success?” in
reference to the AKP’s loss of Istanbul and Ankara.
During campaigning for the local polls, Erdogan often accused
Kilicdaroglu and the CHP of backing the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK) and showed videos of the opposition leader at his rallies.
Kilicdaroglu was not badly injured in the assault.
The chief suspect in Sunday’s attack, identified only by his initials
O.S., was arrested in Sivrihisar in central Anatolia and was being taken
to Ankara, private NTV television reported.
The AKP later identified him as Osman Sarigun and said he was a party member who would face expulsion.
“AKP is against any form of violence… There is no room for violence in
democratic politics,” AKP spokesman Omer Celik said on Twitter.
Eight other people have also been detained, officials said.
Speaking to AFP, the CHP’s Kaftancioglu welcomed the move to expel the
suspect but said the problem was about the polarization of Turkish
society.
“The situation will not change with one person’s dismissal unless the
mentality encouraging attackers by polarizing society changes,” she
said.
Erdogan had presented the local elections as a matter of national
survival. He campaigned heavily even though he was not running in the
election himself.
For his supporters, Erdogan is the strong leader Turkey needs to deal
with its security threats and is a voice for more religiously
conservative Turks.
Critics say Erdogan has stoked divisions by branding foes as enemies of
the state and has undermined the rule of law with a broad crackdown on
dissent.
The AKP has won every election since coming to power 17 years ago, but
voters appeared to punish the party in major cities in this ballot as
the economy slid into recession after a currency crisis last year.
Electoral authorities have given the CHP candidates their mandates for
the Istanbul and Ankara mayor posts, but Erdogan’s AKP is seeking a
re-run of the Istanbul vote, citing irregularities.
The CHP’s Ekrem Imamoglu won the Istanbul race by a very tight margin after two weeks of recounts.
The CHP held Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu responsible for
“provocation” after he said last year he had ordered governors not to
allow CHP members to join soldiers’ funerals.
Soylu ruled out any “outside provocation” in the incident, and said the main culprit was a relative of the dead soldier.