It's dusk on the Bosphorus Strait. As the sun sets over Istanbul, Zainab Bilgin tells us her fears, just days before the second round of the Turkish presidential election.

"Religion dominates politics in this country, and this election can change women's lives and rights," she said. "Hüda-Par publicly states that women should not vote, that all women should marry before the age of 30. Hüda-Par is very powerful and I'm really worried."

Turkey's radical Islamist party Hüda-Par crystallizes its fears. In fact, Zainab Bilgin asked for her name to be changed for fear of speaking out publicly.

Zainab Bilgin (not real name) is waiting for the boat at the Kadikoy ferry port in Istanbul. © Samia Metheni, France 24

A few days later, in the Kurdish stronghold of Diyarbakir (south-east of Turkey), a woman approaches us after casting her ballot for the second round of the presidential election, which opposes Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu. "This is the last vote of women," she warns in English, speaking slowly but forcefully. "Maybe we will lose our right to vote. They will change everything. We will become like Iran because of Hüda-Par."

That night, shortly after President Erdogan's triumphant re-election, the woman at the polling station continued to call and send messages to make sure she had not been named or identified. Her fears about the consequences of this election for Turkish women were as strong as her certainty that the crackdown would be severe against opposition supporters, especially the Kurds.

Across the country, many women who voted for the opposition seem convinced that nothing will ever be the same again with Recep Tayyip Erdogan's new mandate.

In question, the presence alongside the "reis" of an Islamist Kurdish party, marginal, little known on the domestic scene before the 2023 campaign: Hüda-Par. It is the acronym of "Hür Dava Partisi", in English: the "Party of the Free Cause", which can also be translated literally as "Party of God".

Huda-Par offices in Riyarbekir, southeastern Turkey. © Leela Jacinto, FRANCE 24

Stemming from the war between obscure branches of the state security apparatus and a Kurdish armed group in the 1990s, Hüda-Par has long been neglected by Turks in the big cities. Its rise to power shows the dangers of ignorance of the periphery, in a highly centralized nation, which has long neglected injustices committed against minorities.

Things changed in 2023, when the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) announced that it had entered into an alliance with Hüda-Par, which would include the Islamist Kurdish party in the same list as the presidential party.

Sentencing from opponents was swift and vigorous. They gained in intensity when the legislative elections on 14 May, which took place at the same time as the first round of the presidential election, propelled four Hüda-Par members into the National Assembly, where 600 deputies sit. Many are now wondering how much of their Islamist agenda the government will take over as Recep Tayyip Erdogan enters his third decade in power.

Kurds kill Kurds in state-led fratricidal war

The consternation caused by Hüda-Par's entry into the Turkish Parliament stems from its dark past, which has never been acknowledged or adequately addressed by the Turkish state. The roots of Hüda-Par go back to Hezbollah, a Sunni Kurdish group that no longer exists, with no connection to its Lebanese namesake.

The experts interviewed indicate that in the 1990s, Hezbollah was used by the Turkish security services to kill members and sympathizers of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party). It then became a takfiri jihadist group killing anyone – especially women's rights activists – who disagreed with the group's interpretation of the radical line of Islam.

"Hezbollah has been infiltrated by the security services and encouraged to carry out attacks against Kurdish militants and civilians. There has been a lot of murder, persecution, torture, especially against women, religious leaders and activists, that has not been solved," said Mashuq Kurt, a specialist on Turkish Hezbollah at Royal Holloway (University of London).

The Turkish state has used Hezbollah against left-wing Kurdish groups in a fratricidal war. But when the group attacked the police, including killing the Diyarbakir police chief, the state finally cracked down: in 2000, thousands of Hezbollah members were arrested during a security operation.

According to Mashuq Kurt, this repression was followed by a "silent period", until 2004, when the movement reappeared in the public space in the form of civil society organizations, shortly after the AKP came to power. The AKP's liberalization measures quickly opened the space for Islamist groups operating underground. Hüda-Par then emerged as a legal entity, establishing offices in Diyarbakir.

"They have reappeared in the public space via legal entities, with continuity in ideology and the same social base of their supporters, but I don't see a structural link," Kurt said. What has changed is the implementation of these ideals, their methods. Previously, they were highly secretive, clandestine and depended on a hard core ready to engage in violence. Today, they are a legal entity."

As a political party, Hüda-Par denies any links with Hezbollah, but admits that in the past some of its members belonged to the armed group. And party leader Zekeriya Yapicioglu has publicly stated that he does not believe Hezbollah is a terrorist group. Remarks denounced by the opposition and the media before the second round of the presidential election, and which gave rise to protests, especially in football stadiums, with ultras shouting: "We do not want Hezbollah in Parliament".

Criminalize adultery, remove domestic violence laws

But the ultras groups arrive too late. With four Hüda-Par members elected to Parliament, the party began its first legislature by refusing to bow to the habits and customs of the Turkish Republic. Almost two weeks after the general election, a Turkish media reported that the new MPs had still not been sworn in, as Hüda-Par refused to accept the oath of Turkish MPs.

According to the secular Republican People's Party (CHP), the Islamist party has also opposed the employment of women in parliament.

Women's rights are indeed in the sights of Hüda-Par and another radical Islamist party allied with the AKP: the New Prosperity Party (YRP). Both parties are calling for a reassessment of laws to "protect the integrity of the family", which translates into setbacks on laws protecting women from domestic violence.

"Both parties share the same visions on gender equality and the integration of the family into a patriarchal structure. Their positions are homophobic, xenophobic – they are very anti-Western and anti-Israel – and quite controversial, especially on the issue of women's rights and LGBT+ rights," Kurt said.

Hüda-Par proposes to criminalize extramarital sex and adultery, remove women's rights to alimony, and repeal Turkey's law that protects victims of domestic abuse.

"The axis of conservatism" in the Kurdish regions

Hüda-Par's extreme positions led many Turks to assume that Erdogan's position in the run-up to the elections was so weakened that he was forced to embarrassingly support this fringe party.

Turkish Interior Minister Souleyman Soylu, however, gave an overview of the ruling party's strategy, describing the AKP's alliance with Hüda-Par as "the most important step taken by the Turkish Republic and Turkish politics in recent years".

In an interview with CNN Türk, Souleyman Soylu indicated that the "strategic importance" of the alliance will be visible in ten years, when "the axis of conservatism in the politics of the east and southeast will be reactivated by this stage".

The AKP's strategic process to extend the "axis of conservatism" is well underway in the southeastern Kurdish region, to counter the secular and progressive HDP (Peoples' Democratic Party), which remains the most popular party in the region.

The HDP's influence on the Kurdish vote – an important and largely cohesive component of the opposition's electoral base – has continued despite President Erdogan's severe crackdown on the party.

But in recent years, Erdogan's party "has striven to win the support of the Kurdish population," Kurt said, adding that "Hüda-Par provides the AKP with a basis to work on these policies."

Targeting Kurdish mayors and women's rights activists

Since the failed coup in July 2016, President Erdogan has dismissed and imprisoned many democratically elected HDP mayors, accusing them of "supporting an illegal organization", in reference to the PKK, considered terrorist. For human rights defenders, the Turkish president is content to designate all those who oppose him as "terrorists".

Gulcihan Simsek, former mayor of the Bostanici district (in the southeastern province of Van) was arrested in April 2009 and imprisoned for five years, without charge, in Diyarbakir's notorious military prison No. 5, in the heart of Turkey's largest Kurdish city.

Gulchihan Simsek says attacking the Kurdish women's movement is an important part of the AKP strategy to win Kurdish votes. © Samia Metheni, France 24

Once removed, mayors are replaced by administrators appointed by the ruling party. "The AKP is therefore now seeking to replace the HDP with Hüda-Par as the legal representative of the Kurdish population, and is promoting an Islamic brotherhood to divert the Kurds from national aspirations," Kurt said. "A lot of aid is given to Hüda Par supporters and civil society organizations."

The AKP, however, is in fierce competition for Kurdish votes. The CHP, a secular opposition party, did not seek Kurdish votes, leaving the way open for Kurdish parties. In return, they strongly supported the CHP in the last elections.

The strategy of the ruling party in the south-east is therefore to promote traditional and family roles for women, in an attempt to broaden and capture the conservative Kurdish vote. This means targeting the women's movement, according to Gulcihan Simsek.

Since her release from Diyarbakir prison in 2014, the former mayor has been actively involved in the Kurdish women's movement, which paved the way for the Turkish women's movement. But this has not protected her from frequent arrests, detentions, and trials that follow one another and last a long time.

"This government is restricting our freedoms, they are trying to make women stay at home. It is a state policy to divide the Kurds. The people of Hüda-Par owe an apology to the Kurdish people for what they did in the 1990s. The Kurds are outraged," says Gulcihan Simsek, who remains hopeful: "Suddenly, Hüda-Par became friends with the AKP. But the Kurdish people are not fooled. We will continue our struggle."

This article has been translated from the original into English.

The summary of the week France 24 invites you to look back on the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news with you everywhere! Download the France 24 app