Alevi protestor at compulsory religious classes with PKK and HDP flags, 2015. Demotix/ John Wreford. All rights reserved.One of the hottest debates about Turkey’s June 7 General Elections is whether the HDP, (People’s Democratic Party) which represents the Kurdish Political Movement, will be able to pass the 10% electoral threshold or not. This is the first time that the Kurdish Movement is joining the elections as a party, instead of nominating independent candidates that won’t be affected by the threshold.
HDP, which defines itself as “not only the representative of the Kurdish movement, but the voice of all the oppressed and the excluded sections of contemporary Turkish society” is organizing rallies all over Turkey, and effectively using social media to reach its new target audience. This mainly is the Turkish youth, which suffers from increasing unemployment, the rising conservative culture and the hegemony of political Islam backed by a dominant AKP (Justice and Development Party).
This group was the main social and political force behind the Gezi protests, which started exactly two years ago in Istanbul. The violent crackdown of the police force led to the death of five young men and a 14 year-old child from various cities of Turkey, all of whom were from the Alevi religious minority (which can be described as a protestant interpretation of Shia Islam). Since Alevis suffer both from social and political exclusion and assimilation based on their sectarian differences, their community is the most committed supporter of secularism.
