Attack on police facility triggers clampdown on municipal employees in Southern Turkey

After an attack on a police facility in Turkey’s southern city of Mersin that killed a police officer and wounded another, the police carried out extensive raids in the city, including the municipal employees, Deutsche Welle Turkish reported. 

The first of the two consecutive “terror” operations targeted 22 people who were detained as part of the investigation carried out by the Mersin prosecutor.

But in a second wave of arrests, police launched a heavy raid on municipal employees who work under a mayor from the main opposition CHP (People’s Republican Party.)

18 municipal employees were detained for allegedly making propaganda for the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) in Mersin. 

Videos posted on social media showed heavily armed police officers raiding the house of Mersin Metropolitan Municipality Press and Public Relations Department Head Bedrettin Gunes while the cameras from state media were filming. The police urged Gunes to lay down at gunpoint when he opened the door. 

Mersin Büyükşehir Belediyesi Basın Yayın ve Halkla İlişkiler Dairesi Başkanı Bedrettin Güneş'in evine, kameraların önünde kalkanlı silahlı baskın!

— BirGün Gazetesi (@BirGun_Gazetesi) September 28, 2022

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan earlier blamed the CHP among many other political actors after it turned out that the party ten years ago listed Dilsah Ercan, one of the assailants in the Mersin attack, in a report titled “Arrested journalists”. 

"No matter which terrorist you follow, you end up reaching the HDP, the CHP, journalists, politicians, NGO representatives, or Western countries,” he said.