Abdullah Demirbas, Kurdish human rights activist and twice-elected former mayor of the Sur municipality in Diyarbakir, has long been targeted by Turkish authorities who apparently view him as a threat to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's determination to "re-Islamify" his nation. "I would like to emphasize that we believe in that inter-religious and intercultural dialogue a will bring communities together in this century," Demirbas told his lawyer, Ms. Irina Tsukerman, while he languished in prison. Turkish officials saw it differently. They apprehended Demirbas on Aug. 5, 2015, and charged him with financing terror and being a member of a terrorist organization, according to his daughter, Berfin Demirbas. Yet a Sept.16 article published in The Armenian Weekly reveals the real motivation behind Demirbas's detainment. "This latest arrest comes amid charges against a number of Kurdish politicians, following the June 7 parliamentary elections that saw the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lose its majority, while the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) successfully surpassed the minimum 10-percent threshold required to gain representation in the Turkish Parliament," the paper explains. "The AKP subsequently failed to form a government."

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