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Unrest mars Kurdish festival in Turkey
22.3.2007
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March 22, 2007
MERSIN, Turkey, -- Tens of thousands of Kurds
marked their biggest festival, Newroz, on Wednesday
with celebrations across Turkey marred by sporadic
violence and clashes between police and militants.
The authorities beefed up security for the event,
which has been mired in bloodshed in the past.
Several dozen people were detained for displaying
support for Kurdish separatists fighting the
government.
In the Mediterranean port of Mersin, home to a
particularly militant community of migrant Kurds,
police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse
some 1,000 youths who demonstrated support for
jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.
"Without Ocalan we will bring the world down on your
head," they chanted, in a reference to allegations
that the leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK) is being poisoned in prison.
At least 20 protestors were detained and several
people injured, an AFP photographer said.
Late in the evening, Kurdish militants hurled a
Molotov cocktail at a bus in the western city of
Izmir, setting the vehicle ablaze, Anatolia news
agency reported. The police responded with pepper
gas and detained 22 people.
Two buses were pelted with sticks and stones in
Istanbul and several passengers were injured by
broken glass, Anatolia said.
Newroz Day, which marks the arrival of spring and
the Kurdish New Year, has become a platform for
Turkey's Kurdish minority to demand greater freedoms
or voice support for the PKK.
The group has waged a bloody separatist campaign in
the mainly Kurdish southeast since 1984 and is
listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of
the international community.
The largest crowd -- about 100,000 people --
gathered in Diyarbakir, the main city of the
southeast, where militant revellers chanted pro-PKK
slogans. Three women were slightly injured when
demonstrators stoned the police and the security
forces fired warning shots in the air, Anatolia
said.
In Istanbul, 50,000 people attended the festivities,
lighting traditional bonfires and dancing to Kurdish
folk music.
"Real democracy or nothing," they shouted, while a
group of youths unfurled a giant portrait of Ocalan
before police intervened to take it down.
The festivities were organised by Turkey's main
Kurdish political movement, the Democratic Society
Party, whose members have in recent weeks become
increasingly targeted by judicial action over
charges of backing the PKK.
In Ankara, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
appealed for peace and unity at official Newroz
ceremonies, held in a bid to prevent the day from
being monopolised by Kurdish militants.
"Let the seeds of hatred and hostility burn in the
bonfires," Erdogan said.
He then lit a bonfire and several ministers jumped
over it.
Newroz is also celebrated in Iran and other Muslim
communities in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Celebrations in Turkey have been relatively calm in
recent years, but police in Istanbul and nearby
Kocaeli last week detained 12 suspected Kurdish
rebels in possession of 11.7 kilograms (25.7 pounds)
of plastic explosives, reportedly intended for bomb
attacks at Newroz.
The run-up to the festival was also marred by
accusations by Ocalan's lawyers that the PKK leader,
whom many Kurds see as a freedom fighter, is being
gradually poisoned with toxic substances in the
prison island of Imrali, where he is the sole
inmate. Ankara has denied the claims.
In 1992, in the bloodiest Newroz so far, about 50
people were killed by the security forces during
clashes across the southeast.
More recently, in 2002, two men were crushed to
death during a police crackdown on violent Newroz
demonstrations in Mersin.
Under pressure from the European Union, which it is
seeking to join, Ankara has in recent years
broadened Kurdish cultural freedoms.
But Kurdish activists say the reforms are inadequate
and have called on the government for a general
amnesty for PKK militants to encourage them to end
their armed campaign, which 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
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
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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