Turkey’s Interior Ministry on Saturday dismissed the Kurdish mayor of Van, Abdullah ZeydanAbdullah Zeydan , and replaced him with a trustee after he was sentenced to three years and nine months in jail on terror-related charges.
A court in Diyarbakir (Amed) convicted Zeydan on Tuesday for “aiding the terrorist organization and engaging in its propaganda.”
As expected, the Interior Ministry said in a statement early Saturday morning that based on the court ruling they had temporarily removed Zeydan from his post and replaced him with a state-affiliated administrator or trustee.
Supporters of the Van mayor have taken to the streets since Tuesday to condemn the court decision, which the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) criticized as “unlawful.”
Protesters have also staged a sit-in in front of the municipality building to prevent security forces from removing the mayor.
Zeydan’s tenure has been fraught with uncertainty since his victory in Turkey’s local elections last March, when he secured over 55 percent of the votes for the DEM Party, defeating the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) candidate.
His victory was challenged in a local court responding to a last-minute request by the Justice Ministry. As a result, the mayorship was handed to the AKP runner-up. This sparked protests in the Kurdish-majority southeast and drew widespread criticism from both AKP allies and opposition parties.
The DEM Party filed an appeal with the election board to challenge the removal of Zeydan, which was accepted, leading to his reinstatement as mayor.
Since 2016, dozens of Kurdish mayors have been dismissed and sentenced on “terrorism-related” charges for alleged ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara has designated a terrorist organization. The dismissed mayors are replaced with state-appointed trustees.[1]