JINHA

WAN – Sevil Rojbin Çetin, elected as co-mayor of the largely Kurdish town of Edremit in 2014, has written a letter to Edremit residents from jail, calling on them to continue the project of participatory self-government despite the Turkish state’s political cleansing project.

The Democratic Regions Party (DBP), the main political party in Northern Kurdistan (in Turkey), implements a co-mayor system, whereby a man and woman share the office of the mayor, to support gender parity at all levels of government. When the ruling AKP lost its single-party majority in Turkey’s June elections, in large part thanks to voters in Northern Kurdistan abandoning the party, the Turkish state began a political cleansing operation targeting Kurdish activists, especially co-mayors. The state has arrested a large number of women co-mayors of cities and districts across the region.

Sevil Rojbin Çetin, elected as co-mayor of the town of Edremit in 2014, was arrested on August 24 during a raid on the city government. State prosecutors have charged her with “breaking the unity of the state” and are pushing for life in prison.

Sevil, like the other women co-mayors arrested in the operation, was exiled to the high-security F-type prison in distance Sincan, where guards used a strip search as a form of torture against her. Sevil Rojbin recently wrote a letter from jail to the citizens of Edremit.

“We promised that we would serve you based on the idea of ‘equal, just, transparent, participatory municipal government’ and we promised to be worthy of you,” wrote Sevil Rojbin. She noted that the municipal government took participatory democracy as the basis of municipal services, and called on the people to continue this project.

“As the expression of your will, we know that even if we go to jail, you will pick things up where we left off, as you are both the actors and the drivers of these services,” said Sevil Rojbin. She called on the people of Edremit to continue governing and planning their city without interruption.

(ng-mc/fk/cm)