No to the military coup in Turkey!

In defence of the democratic rights of the Turkish people! No to Erdogan’s repressive regime!

On the evening of Friday 15 a military coup was unleashed in Turkey. The news is confusing. Apparently, the situation has not yet become defined. Military forces with tanks took to the streets, controlled bridges over the Bosphorus in Istanbul and various points in the capital Ankara. The coup leaders have read a statement on television in which they established martial law. President Erdogan and his party, AKP, called out to the streets in defence of his regime.

The Socialists of the IWL–FI call to repudiate the military coup and any attempt to repress the people, young people, women and workers who take to the streets to confront the military coup. We defend the democratic rights of workers and the people of Turkey and not the repressive government of Erdogan.

The triumph of a military coup, despite their advertising it for “peace and democracy” and of accusing the hated Erdogan of “traitor”, would only deepen the current repression and severe limitations on freedoms. Let us not forget that Erdogan and the military and security forces of his government have launched a “dirty” war against the Kurdish community and people in its territory and have imprisoned leaders and activists of the Kurdish movement and the Turkish left. Furthermore, Erdogan’s government has intervened in Syria endorsing, at first, the formation of reactionary ISIS (Daesh in Arabic).

This is the political framework of this attempted coup. The current outcome is only explained by the serious political and social crisis in which Turkey’s reality of immersed.

We call on the peoples of the world and the organisations that claim to be democratic and of the left to express their repudiation of the military coup, without giving any support to the government of Erdogan. We express our solidarity with our sister party İşçi Demokrasisi Partisi (Workers Democracy Party— IDP), section of the IWU-FI in Turkey, as well as with all workers organisations and of the Turkish and Kurdish left. We call to support the Turkish people and the working class in defence of their democratic and social rights and their freedoms.

International Workers Unity-Fourth International (IWU–FI)

15 July, 2016.