Visiting an arrested mayor in today's Turkey

When Deniz Baykal, the former chairman of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), heard that Ahmet Türk, the co-mayor of the Syria border city of Mardin, had been taken into police custody on Nov. 21, he immediately decided to go to Mardin to talk to Türk in solidarity. 

Baykal and Türk have totally different political views. Türk was elected as mayor of Mardin and is a member of the Democratic Regions Party (DBP), a reserve party in line with the Kurdish problem-focused Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). Türk was taken from his office on Nov. 17, accused of helping the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging an armed campaign against the Turkish government since 1984, during which more than 40,000 people have been killed so far.

Baykal let the local authorities know that he wanted to visit Türk in custody in Mardin on the evening of Nov. 22. "They knew I was due to arrive in Mardin at around 11 p.m.," Baykal told me on the phone on Nov. 25.

"The police transferred Türk to the prosecutor's office at around midnight, quite unusually. They knew it would not be possible for me or anyone else to see him during his testimony process, but it would have been possible for me to get permission to see him if he was in a police station or jail. It became clear that his interrogation would continue for as long as I was in town." 

Indeed, Türk was arrested by the court on charges of "helping PKK propaganda" as soon as Baykal left Mardin to return to Ankara on Nov. 23.

Baykal then visited Mülkiye Türk, Ahmet Türk's wife, at their home to ask whether there was anything he could do to help. There was one thing: The 74-year-old arrested mayor's health is not good, and his wife wishes he could be kept in...