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Thousands mass for Kurdish festival in
Turkey amid tight security
21.3.2006
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DIYARBAKIR,
Kurdistan-Turkey, March 21, 2006 - Tens of
thousands of people gathered in southestern Turkey
(Kurdistan-Turkey) Tuesday to celebrate Newroz, the
Kurdish New Year, as police beefed up security over
fears that radical Kurds may use the event to stir
unrest in the already tense region.
The largest crowd was gathering in Diyarbakir, the
main city of the region, where the celebrations,
marred by bloodshed in the past, drew some 120,000
people, according to police.
Organisers said they expected up to 250,000 people
to attend the festivities at the Fair grounds, about
10 kilometers (six miles) from the city center,
under close surveillance by some 3,000 policemen.
Newroz day has become a platform for Turkey's
Kurdish minority to demand greater freedoms or
demonstrate support for the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting for
self-rule in the southeast since 1984.
The conflict, which has claimed more than 37,000
lives, has long hampered Turkey's bid to join the
European Union and continues to cast a pall on its
commitment to democracy and human rights.
"We did our best to ensure that Newroz passes
peacefully this year," Ahmet Turk, co-chairman of
the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), the
organizer of the festivities, told AFP.
Although celebrations have been relatively calm in
recent years, the authorities fear Kurdish militants
could try to fuel unrest this year as part of
increased PKK violence in the southeast, marked by a
series of bomb attacks on civilian targets.
Tension in the region has also escalated over the
November bombing of a Kurdish-owned bookstore in the
town of Semdinli, which two soldiers and a Kurdish
informer are accused of perpetrating.
The incident sparked deadly riots and accusations
that Ankara has failed to purge rogue groups in the
security forces accused of summary executions,
extortion, kidnappings and drug-smuggling in the
1990s, when the PKK campaign in the region was at
its peak.
The celebrations kicked off in other parts of Turkey
at the weekend, including Semdinli, where the bombed
bookstore was re-opened in a DTP-organized ceremony.
In some cities, demonstrators threw stones at the
police, but no major incidents were reported.
Keen to boost its image in EU eyes, Turkish police
in recent years have often tolerated open displays
of support for the PKK -- blacklisted as a terrorist
group by Ankara, the EU and the United States -- and
its jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan.
In Tuesday's festivities here, participants
brandished giant posters of Ocalan and the PKK, as
well as placards that read: "There is still a chance
for peace".
Many people queued up to sign a petition declaring
the PKK leader to represent the "political will" of
their community.
"If millions of people accept Ocalan as a leader,
then the state must see him as an interlocutor.
There can be no peace as long as he is in jail," one
of the organisers of the petition campaign told AFP.
The PKK has called on the Kurds to "shake off their
lethargy" on Newroz, which traditionally marks the
arrival of spring, and "to step up and radicalize
the uprising."
In the bloodiest festival so far, about 50 people
were killed by security forces in 1992 during
clashes across the southeast.
More recently, two men were crushed to death in a
police clampdown on violent Newroz demonstrations in
2002 in the Mediterranean port of Mersin, home to
particularly militant community of migrant Kurds.
Newroz marks the awakening of nature at the March 21
equinox. It is also celebrated in Iran and other
Muslim communities in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
AFP
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