Mother and nephew of Murat Şen, the mayor of İdil, a town in Şırnak Province in southeastern Turkey, were reportedly beaten by a group of police officers during a police raid on their house early on Saturday.

“Earlier today, they arrested my nephew in a house raid and battered my 90-year old mother. They will answer for these crimes, you cowards,” Murat Şen tweeted.

The Turkish government accuses many democratically-elected Kurdish mayors fom the ranks of the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) of having links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). President Tayyip Erdogan has dismissed a total of 32 elected Kurdish mayors in 2019 on terror charges.

In August 2019, the Turkish government first removed the mayors of Diyarbakır, Mardin and Van, three metropolitan cities won by the HDP.

All the mayors, who were democratically elected in local elections on March 31, have been removed from office by Turkey’s Interior Ministry.

In October, a Turkish court arrested Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Adnan Selçuk Mızraklı on charges of “membership of a terrorist organization” and “propagandizing for a terrorist organization.”

Bu sabah ev baskininda yigenim Nurettîn gözaltına alınıp 90 yaşındaki annemi ve yigenimi darp etmişler hukuk önünde hesap vereceksiniz korkaklar pic.twitter.com/mhqhdCfCYo — Murat Şen (@muraten51565552) February 15, 2020