Solidarity with the persecuted brave communists of Turkey

International Committee of the NCPN

The NCPN stands in solidarity with the 145 Turkish communists arrested last Sunday in Ankara, Kocaeli, and Soma, and demands their immediate release. We condemn the regime of President Erdogan and his AK Party, which brutally suppresses the demand for peace and socialism.

The actions of the Turkish regime expose the undemocratic nature of NATO. NATO tolerates no opposition to its warmongering for profit and expansion, against the working class of all countries. NATO member states, which more often than not are quick to talk about freedom and democracy, remain deafeningly silent about repression in Turkey.

Last Sunday, protests against this week's NATO summit took place all across Turkey. In Istanbul, for example, the NCPN, together with ten other parties and organisations, took to the streets against the imperialist NATO, its war machine, and the attack on our social security systems to fund its new arms race.

In Ankara, where the right to demonstrate and the freedom of assembly were completely dismantled by the Turkish government, communists from the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) bravely took to the streets regardless, at the risk of their own freedom and health, to resist the attempt to silence opponents of NATO. There, the communists surprised the authorities and succeeded in organising a march through the Turkish capital. They were met with heavy-handed police repression. The use of rubber bullets, physical force, and mass arrests was excessive.

Many Turkish comrades are in hospital with broken limbs, and more than a hundred have been thrown in jail. All of this to crush resistance to NATO and the working class's desire for a world without imperialist wars. But this resistance will not be banned without a fight.


Resistance to NATO is not a crime, but an obligation!

Freedom for the communists of Turkey!

Long live international solidarity!