|
Finland: Kurds in Helsinki demonstrate in
support of Ocalan
9.3.2007
|
|
|
|
March 9, 2007
HELSINKI, -- Some 100 Kurds demonstrated on
Thursday in Helsinki in support of Kurdish rebel
leader Abdullah Ocalan, Finnish police said, amid
claims that he is being progressively poisoned in
prison.
"The demonstration, which started in front of the
Finnish parliament and ended two hours later at the
Finnish foreign ministry, was organized by the
Kurdish Organization in Finland and was peaceful,"
Helsinki police chief inspector Heikki Kallio told
AFP.
Ocalan, 58, led a bloody separatist rebellion in
southeast Turkey from 1984 until his capture in
1999.
His lawyers claim that laboratory tests on his hair
samples have indicated the presence of what they
described as toxic metals, including levels of
chromium seven times higher than normal and high
levels of strontium. |
Jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan. The only
prisoner on the Imrali Island in the Turkish Sea of
Marmara. photo from ROJ TV |
Finnish media reported that Thursday's demonstrators
had sent a letter addressed to the Finnish foreign
minister in which they expressed their concerns
about Ocalan's health.
But the foreign ministry said it had no knowledge of
such a letter.
"Maybe it is in the mail," a spokesman said.
Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is listed as
a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the
international community, but to many among Turkey's
sizeable Kurdish minority its militants are freedom
fighters.
The PKK campaign for Kurdish self-rule in the
southeast has resulted in more than 37,000 deaths.
AFP
** 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
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 