Garo Paylan

ISTANBUL—Garo Paylan, an Armenian member of the Turkish Parliament from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), who was attacked on Monday during a parliamentary commission meeting, issued an appeal to the press and public late Tuesday calling the incident a “pre-meditated lynch attempt” by the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) because of his Armenian heritage.

Asbarez is one of the recipients of the announcement, which we present below, without edits.

The altercations and the fight erupted on May 2, 2016, during the discussions at the Constitution Commission on the constitutional amendment bill is a pre-planned lynch attempt.

Today, there have been reports on the pro-government media, claiming that I had “triggered” and “provoked” the fight and that the HDP MPs caused the physical violence that was lived. These reports clearly twist the facts.

In fact, when Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdağ said “(…) the consultants of MPs participated in this violence” about the fights occured the previous day, I replied to him as “No, they did not”. As can be seen in the minutes, there is nothing that could be referred as a provocation in my words. (The minutes of the Constitution Commission of May 2, 2016 can be found in Turkish.

Right after that, as the video footage reveals, a fight burst out as AKP’s Istanbul MP Mehmet Metiner physically attacked me that initiated a planned lynch.

Physical attacks increasingly continued and AKP’s MPs pointed out and targeted me by calling out as “Come over, Garo is here!” and making remarks that amount to hate speech about my Armenian identity.

In addition to the continuing attacks against all HDP MPs since last week, I have personally been targeted by AKP MPs because of my Armenian identity and been subjected to hate speech.

This lays bare that the attack is a pre-meditated lynch attempt by the AKP MPs and I was particularly been chosen as a target.

I condemn the hate speech and the hate crime against me and my identity.

Let us not forget that the fascists are cowards and they can only attack as a crowd and dastardly.

Garo PAYLAN
HDP MP, representing Istanbul
03.05.2016