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Vienna: Kurdish protestors storm UN Centre
during IAEA meeting
5.3.2007
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March 5, 2007
Vienna, Austria, -- Kurdish protestors
stormed the entrance to the United Nations Centre in
Vienna Monday where the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) were holding a board meeting.
Approximately 52 members of an organization of
Kurdish exiles took part in the protest to demand
the release of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader
Abdullah Ocalan who is serving a life sentence in
Turkey.
The disruption lasted for about an hour with the
protestors utilizing the presence of numerous
international media crews reporting on the IAEA
meeting to draw attention to their cause. |
Jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan Now, The only
prisoner on the Imrali Island in the Turkish Sea of
Marmara. photo from ROJ TV |
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), headed by Ocalan
until 1999, has been fighting an armed campaign in
the Kurdish south-eastern Turkey to create an
independent Kurdish state.
Ocalan was given the death sentence in Turkey in
1999. His sentence has since been commuted to life
imprisonment after
Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2002.
DPA
** The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to some 20 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan but
unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag is
banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it is
a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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