Fight Back News Service is circulating the following May 18 call from the Labor Party of Turkey (EMEP), Central Executive Committee.

Let’s unite our forces and raise the struggle for a democratic constitution and a Parliament!...

Following the referendum of 16 April 2017, in which the result was controversially declared as a victory for ‘Yes’ by the YSK (Higher Election Commission), the construction of a regime of ‘one man, one party’ reached a new stage.

At least half of the population in the country rejected the attempts to “build a new regime” by President Erdoğan, the AKP government and the forces of capital that back them; with their No votes, they countered these attempts. At this point, the palace, government and their supporters are trying to ride over the issue of legitimacy through the State of Emergency (OHAL).

This is the reason for attempts to normalize the continuation of OHAL and governing the country through emergency decrees of law (KHK). OHAL is the main instrument in their attempts to fulfil political and social attacks on workers and the public; terrorizing public opposition and trying to prevent and shut it down by oppression.

Media companies are still subjected to fines and closures; opposition politicians and journalists are still subjected to custody and detentions. Oppression of labor and removal of rights such as redundancy pay and the right to job security are intensified. The pit the country is dragged into by internal and external war policies is deepening.

In this political momentum, where the political future of the country will be shaped by international developments and the power struggle between the classes, the urgent duty of public opposition is to raise the struggle for winning democratic rights and political freedoms.

To put the position to be taken in the Presidential elections of 2019 as a duty in front of the ‘No front’, in an environment where the legitimacy of 16 April referendum is discussed, will only create a climate that enable the palace, government and their supporters to bring in any ‘adjustment law’ they need on the way to the ‘one man, one party dictatorship’.

Taking these into consideration, our party calls on:

All labor, democratic and progressive forces, including political parties, labor and workers’ organizations, women’s, youth, environmental and religious groups, to unite their forces for a Constitution and a Parliament that will form the basis of a political system that secures full sovereignty of the people; primarily, to ensure the removal of OHAL and the cancellation of KHK’s, to prevent further political and social attacks; the democratic solution of the Kurdish issue; freedom of faith and establishing real secularism; protection of immunity of property and individuals; freedom of speech, media and right to organize; the workers’ and public’s right to work, shelter, job security and a secure future.

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