Police using teargas and water cannon,Diyarbakir region, December 2015. Demotix/ Avni Kantan. All rights reserved.On November 2, 2016, the Metropolitan Municipality of Diyarbakir has been put under forced administration by the central Turkish government. This act of repression is part of a larger campaign of the AKP government to crush the Kurdish and left opposition, increasingly so since the failed military coup in July 2016. In total 35 municipalities ruled by the HDP (People's Democratic Party), respectively its member party DBP (Democratic Regions Party), have now been taken over by an AKP administrator, are occupied by a big number of police and to date hundreds of employees have been fired. This is an account of the life within the Municipality of Diyarbakir by one of the employees after the occupation.
I am walking along the corridor, towards the two police officers sitting by the entrance to the secretariat. Until last week, this was the spot of my colleague M., a security guard who always had a book with him, using his downtime to read. We shared daily conversations, from ancient Mesopotamian mythology, to Marx or Sumerian poetry.
I avoid eye contact with the police, turn left and unlock my office door. For more than one year, I have been working in this room, but now I have not been able to enter it for over a week. I immediately check the desks, drawers and walls. They have only been rummaging around – less than in the other rooms on the first floor. Luckily, I was able to save important and personal belongings beforehand, and saved my files on my private computer.
