Statement from the CC of the Workers Party Youth (Ireland) 28 March 2025
On the 19th March, Ekrem İmamoğlu, the Mayor of Istanbul was arrested on corruption charges by the Erdoğan government. İmamoğlu is the leader of the main opposition party in the Turkish parliament, the Republican People’s Party, CHP. As a result protests have erupted across the major cities in Turkey, namely İzmir, Ankara and Istanbul. Erdoğan has labelled the protests as a “movement of violence” in an attempt to discredit the demands for basic democratic processes and the opposition of the protestors to the AKPs policy of Neo-Ottomanism and repression.
The Turkish bourgeoisie, which has the temporary support of the USA-EU-NATO, are struggling among themselves for who will act as the agents of capital in Turkey. The working class and working youth have nothing to gain in this intra-bourgeoisie struggle. The path of the working class in Turkey is represented by the Communist Party of Turkey and the struggle for workers’ power. Only a break with capitalism and the imperialist plans of the Turkish bourgeoisie can serve as a path out of crisis, exploitation and repression.
WPY commend the courage and militancy of the volunteers of the TKP and TKG in leading the working class against capitalist repression and in the struggle for democratic rights. We condemn the actions of the Turkish state in arresting Ekrem İmamoğlu and the subsequent repression of protesters who are justly demanding their rights. The Turkish bourgeoisie is using the lives of millions of workers as pawns in their intra-bourgeoisie struggle. The suspension of even the most elementary of bourgeois processes can be understood as nothing other than an attack on the political rights of the working class. We demand the immediate release of the increasing number of TKP and TKG volunteers who have been arrested.