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One killed, two injured in violent Kurdish
protests in Turkey
21.11.2005
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ISTANBUL, Nov 20
(AFP) - 21h59 - One person was killed and two
injured Sunday when Kurdish demonstrators clashed
with the police in southern Turkey, bringing to five
the death toll from violent protests and riots that
erupted earlier this month, local officials told
Anatolia news agency.
The man died in hospital from a gunshot injury,
Anatolia reported, without saying whether the
security forces used weapons during the clashes in
the Mediterranean city of Mersin.
Local deputy police chief Suleyman Ekizer blamed the
unrest on supporters of the rebel Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK), considered a terrorist group by Ankara,
adding that a judicial probe had been launched into
the incident.
The clashes broke out when riot police used armoured
vehicles to dislodge a group of protestors chanting
pro-PKK slogans who blocked a street using garbage
containers.
Ekizer charged that PKK supporters in the city were
using deadly riots in the mainly Kurdish southeast
as a pretext to attack the police.
The death brings to five the number of people killed
in violent protests and riots over the alleged
involvement of the security forces in the November 9
bombing of a bookstore owned by a former Kurdish
guerrilla in the southeastern town of Semdinli.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has
promised to bring the perpetrators to justice, flew
to the region late Sunday in a surprise decision
following a party meeting, the NTV news channel
reported.
Erdogan was expected to visit Semdinli Monday, it
said.
An angry crowd almost lynched three suspects after
the attack on the bookstore.
Two of them turned out to be officers from the
gendarmerie, an army unit policing rural areas,
while the third -- who reportedly hurled the bomb --
a former Kurdish guerrilla now working as an
informer for the security forces.
The incident rattled the government at a time when
it is under pressure to prove its respect for
democracy and the rule of law in its bid to join the
European Union.
Earlier Sunday, clashes also erupted in Istanbul and
12 people were detained, Anatolia reported.
NTV footage showed protestors hurling stones and
sticks at the security forces and an armored police
vehicle briefly catching fire by what was described
as a Molotov cocktail.
The police responded with tear gas and water
cannons, Anatolia said, adding that the crowd
chanted in favor of the PKK.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed some
37,000 lives since 1984 when the PKK, blacklisted as
a terrorist organization also by the EU and the
United States, took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in
the southeast.
AFP
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