Provocative aggression in ongoing Turkish elections abroad

Tensions arise in the Turkish elections, which started on April 27 for voters living abroad. As a result of provocations at polling stations in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, a fight broke out between AKP supporters and dissident voters. Footage of a large group of people beating each other up is circulating on social media. While security guards tried to calm the situation, police had to step in to end the fight.

Antwerp, Belgium was another place where voters of opposition parties, mainly the Green Left Party (YSP), were intimidated at the polls. Serkan Koyuncu, the AKP mayor of Emirdağ, Turkey, went to the polling station in Antwerp, Belgium, and made propaganda. The voters of opposition parties who felt uncomfortable due to the propaganda speeches at the polls reacted critically to Koyuncu. After the verbal reactions, Serkan Koyuncu’s bodyguards attacked the opponents. One YSP observer was severely beaten during the attack. Elif Durmus, a supporter of the Workers’ Party of Türkiye (TIP), who posted the incident on Twitter, said that Koyuncu, who had been propagandizing for President Erdogan in foreign polling districts, went to the polls in the city of Brussels after the attack.

In England, there was also an racist and aggressive attitude toward the voters of the YSP. 15-year-old Şerwan Tan, who accompanied his father to the polls in London, was forced to leave the hall for wearing a local Kurdish outfit. AKP supporters claimed that Şervan’s outfit was a guerrilla uniform and asked the security guards to remove him. Bystanders reacted strongly to the AKP observers, calling their demand a fascist act. Observers of the opposition called the attack racist and stated that it was a provocation against the security of the elections. As the tension continued, the security guards took Şerwan out of the building.