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Dozens of Kurdish youngsters risk jail
over riots in Turkey
25.4.2006
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DIYARBAKIR,
Kurdistan-Turkey, April 24 (AFP) - At least 80
minors aged between 12 and 18 will stand trial in
connection with deadly Kurdish riots that rattled
this southeastern Turkish city last month, risking
jail terms of up to 24 years, judicial officials
said Monday.
The prosecution charged the suspects with offenses
including membership in an armed organization, a
reference to the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK), accused of orchestrating the riots; damaging
public property; preventing public servants from
carrying out their duties and breaching the law on
meetings and demonstrations, the sources said.
If convicted, the suspects risk jail terms of
between nine-and-a-half and 24 years in jail.
Most of the suspects remain in jail in Diyarbakir,
the central city of the mainly Kurdish southeast.
Ankara has accused the PKK, which has fought for
Kurdish self-rule in the region since 1984, of
deliberately pushing hundreds of children into
clashes with the police in a bid to discredit the
government.
No details were available as to what age groups the
suspects belong, but Baris Yavuz, a lawyer for
several defendants, explained that children younger
than 12 cannot be tried under Turkish law, which
considers people under 18 as minors.
The suspects will be tried at a special juvenile
court, inaugurated last year as part of reforms
Turkey has undertaken to align with European Union
norms.
The unrest erupted in Diyarbakir on March 28 after
youths demanding vengeance attacked the police
following the funerals of PKK rebels killed in
fighting with the army and spread quickly to other
towns in the region.
A total of 16 people, including three small boys,
were killed when the security forces opened fire and
used tear gas to disperse the crowds, which attacked
the police with Molotov cocktails, torched banks and
vandalized public buildings and shops.
Among the victims were also three women who were
crushed to death in Istanbul when Kurdish rioters
set a city bus ablaze with a petrol bomb.
Prosecutors in Diyarbakir have indicted 36 other
minors in connection with the unrest, but a court in
Ankara will decide whether their trial will go ahead
after the charge sheet was rejected by the local
court.
The unrest, followed by clashes between the army and
the PKK in the countryside and several bomb blasts
blamed on the PKK, came at an awkward time for
Turkey as it seeks to prove its democratic
credentials in membership talks with the EU that
opened in October.
The Kurdish conflict has claimed more than 37,000
lives since 1984 when the PKK, blacklisted as a
terrorist group by Ankara, the European Union and
the United States, took up arms for self-rule in the
southeast.
AFP
Southeast Turkey: Northern Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey)
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