LOS ANGELES, Calif.—The Armenian community supported a protest at the Turkish Consulate General in Los Angeles on Nov. 18, to express outrage at the arbitrary arrests of Turkey’s opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag and its several Members of Parliament on Nov. 4, and thousands of others in a dictatorial coup by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The event was a part of a series of protests, which are organized by the Kurdish American Advocacy Group, Kurdish American Relief Fund, HDP-LA, Kurdish Community Center of Southern California, and was co-sponsored by the Armenian Youth Federation-Western United States (AYF-WUS), ARF Shant Student Association (ARF-SSA), and the All-Armenian Student Association (All-ASA). More collaboration will be announced soon.
Earlier this month AYF-WUS, ARF-SSA, All-ASA collaborated with Kurdish, Yezidi, and human rights organizations to release a joint statement, and a petition in response to the current crisis. The petition has since received over 600 signatures.
On Nov. 13, the AYF-WUS was on-air live with KPFK 90.7FM’s ‘Middle East in Focus’ discussing the issue and the emerging alignment of local community organizations against Turkish fascism.
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