Source: İlke News Agency, “Ağrılılardan travesti afişlerine tepki” (“People of Ağrı React to Posters of Transvestite Woman”), İLKHA, 07 August 2014, http://www.ilkehaberajansi.com.tr/haber/agrililardan-travesti-afislerine-tepki.html
Billboard advertisements in Ağrı for Asya Elmas, presented in recent local elections as the People’s Democratic Party (HDP)’s Kadıköy Municipal Council candidate to promote the HDP’s Presidential campaign propaganda, have drawn public reaction.
People in Ağrı have reacted harshly to a poster picturing transvestite Asya Elmas, displayed on a billboard on Kağızman Avenue in support of HDP Presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtaş. Asya Elmas was presented in the local elections by the HDP as a candidate for the Municipal Council in Istanbul’s Kadıköy district.
Ağrı citizen S.S., reacting to the display of the poster, stated that this situation was nothing other than accustoming people to immorality. “By what right does the HDP, in spite of her videos, which appear on video sharing websites, YouTube chief among them, and in spite of the information about her, display this person’s picture on Ağrı’s busiest avenue? The HDP must put an end to this immorality immediately.”
Ağrı citizen Süleyman K., who says that he is a stalwart defender of the HDP, emphasized that an effort was being made to corrupt the people of Ağrı, saying that this poster was displayed deliberately. He responded, “I thought that the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and the HDP, to whom I have been devoted and for whom I have advocated, were defending our rights and keeping alive our customs and traditions. People who we knew to be conscious, educated, and informed would tell us the true aims of these people, but we would react, saying, ‘You have ulterior motives.’ Now I realize that the HDP, the BDP, with its changing name, and their affiliates are moving towards this goal. This disgraceful poster must be removed at once, or else they are going to lose me and people like me.”