MHP deputy chair threatens CHP leader Özel with death

Turkey’s ultranationalist MHP deputy chair Feti Yıldız has threatened CHP leader Özgür Özel with death after the latter’s response to MHP leader Bahçeli. In a social media post, Yıldız quoted the saying “People are born at dawn and die at dusk,” while addressing Özel.

This collage shows CHP leader Özgür Özel (L) and MHP deputy chair Feti Yıldız (R)

Duvar English

Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) deputy chair for legal and electoral affairs Feti Yıldız on April 11 threatened main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Özgür Özel with death.

In response to MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli who claimed on April 9 that the Republic “wasn’t founded through the ballot box” over a row for Van mayorship, Özel said on April 10 that if a country in the world was founded through the ballot box, “it is this country. I don't want to call it ignorance, I would like to accept it as a slip of the tongue.”

Responding to Özel, Feti Yıldız published a written statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Yıldız first claimed that Özel was “intertwining with the extensions of the terrorist organization, defending moral deviants, and taking up arms with the enemies of Turks.”

“The most virtuous behavior one can show is decency. On the morning of Eid in front of Hatuniye Mosque, no one believed his cheapened imitation. In the March 31 Local Elections, did you take the authority to govern the Republic of Turkey and we don't see it?,” Yıldız said, referring to the CHP becoming the leading party in the elections.

Yıldız said the works of the municipalities are defined by law, such as “urban infrastructure, water, sewerage, transportation; environmental health, cleaning, solid waste, municipal police, fire department, emergency aid, rescue and ambulance, urban traffic, cemeteries, afforestation, parks and green areas, marriage ceremonies, etc… of course it is important.”

“Interim (CHP leader Özel), let me remind you of the advice of Sheikh Edebali, the spiritual founder of the Ottoman Turkish State, ‘People are born at dawn and die at dusk’,” Yıldız concluded.

In another response, CHP group deputy chair Gökhan Günaydın said “There are ‘people’ who talk nonsense. There are cadres, they illuminate the dark tunnels.”