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Kurdish demonstrators clash with police in
Istanbul
23.1.2006
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ISTANBUL, Jan 22,
2006 (AFP) - 16h28 - Protesters calling for the
release of jailed Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah
Ocalan clashed with police Sunday in a working-class
district of Istanbul, an AFP photographer reported.
About 100 demonstrators, shouting slogans in support
of the jailed leader of the rebel Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK), threw stones at an equivalent number of
riot police who had come to disperse the protest.
The police fired tear gas grenades and plastic
bullets against the protesters, but no one was hurt
in the melee in Dolapdere, located in Istanbul's
western side.
On the eastern bank of the Bosphorus Strait, in
Umraniye district, pro-PKK demonstrators torched a
city bus with a petrol bomb, slightly injuring its
driver, the Anatolia news agency reported.
Ocalan was sentenced to death in 1999 for his role
in his group's bloody armed campaign for self-rule
in Turkey's mainly Kurdish-populated southeast.
His sentence was commuted to life in prison in 2002
after Turkey abolished capital punishment as part of
reforms to boost its bid to join the European Union.
Last year, Ankara introduced restrictions on
Ocalan's meetings with his lawyers, whom it accused
of carrying orders from the rebel leader to his
militants who have recently stepped up their armed
campaign.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed some
37,000 lives since 1984 when the PKK took up arms
for self-rule in the predominantly Kurdish
southeast.
AFP
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