Solidarity with TKP – release the prisoners!

The Communist Party USA International Department extends its solidarity to the Communist Party of Turkey and all anti-imperialist fighters who took to the streets in Ankara, İstanbul, İzmir, Adana, Samsun and Çanakkale to protest the NATO summit. 

We condemn the heavy-handed police crackdown and mass detentions carried out against your party members and peace activists. The detention of over 100 comrades — including party administrators — the severe head injuries inflicted on seven party members, the fractures suffered by others, and the suspected heart attack that required emergency angiography for one of your members constitute a brutal assault on the fundamental right to dissent. 

This repression exposes the hollowness of NATO’s claims to defend “freedom.” The Turkish government's decision to impose a de facto state of emergency across central Ankara to shield NATO leaders from opposition reveals the true nature of the alliance: a bloody, militarist organization built on occupation, coups and massacres — as Comrade Kemal Okuyan so rightly stated. 

The CPUSA recognizes NATO for what it is: the main imperialist military force in the world, led and dominated by the United States. U.S. imperialism uses NATO to push the world toward disastrous wars, with the working class sent to kill and be killed so that the military-industrial monopolies can secure obscene profits. NATO serves as the vehicle for U.S.-E.U. imperialist domination. 

At this very NATO summit in Ankara, the U.S. and its allies are demanding that member countries increase their military spending — some proposing as much as 5% of GDP. These demands for more NATO spending are demands for more weapons, more war, and more death. Every dollar funneled into NATO's war machine is a dollar stolen from healthcare, housing, education, and the needs of working people. 

We salute the TKP for organizing simultaneous anti-NATO protests in six cities and for upholding the commitment to working-class political independence. 

We are confident that with its determination and unity, the Communist Party of Turkey and the Turkish working class will triumph over the war-mongerers.

Communist Party USA

International Department CPUSA

International Executive

CPUSA Website

People's World