On Friday, the election rally of Turkey’s left opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in Diyarbakir started out with special promise.

There were witty signs and children with balloons. There were even a few Turkish flags, a rare sight for a demonstration in a city where, until recently, Kurds were rounded up and tortured in a prison flying that red banner.

Here in the heart of the Kurdish base of the HDP, the streets leading away from the square were backed up with people for nearly a kilometer in each direction.