|
Kurds Clash With Police in Turkey on
Ocalan birthday
4.4.2007 |
|
|
|
April
4, 2007
ANKARA, Turkey, -- Police and soldiers fired
warning shots into the air and used tear gas and
truncheons Wednesday to disperse hundreds of
stone-throwing Kurdish protesters in mainly Kurdish
southeastern region of Turkey.
The protesters wanted to travel to the village of
Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan to mark his 58th
birthday, reports said.
The clashes erupted when police and soldiers blocked
a highway and stopped a convoy of around 4,000 Kurds
near the town of Halfeti in Sanliurfa province.
Angry Kurds, shouting slogans in support of Ocalan,
began throwing stones at the soldiers and police,
prompting them to open fire into the air, the
private Dogan news agency said.
Some of the protesters and at least one police
officer were slightly injured, it said. The group
wanted to travel to the village of Omerli, where
Ocalan was born, near the town of Birecik.
In Birecik, Turkish authorities distributed toys and
food to keep Kurdish children in school as
demonstrators gathered downtown.
"We distributed
kebabs at high schools and toys at the
primary school to prevent the manipulation of the
children," said Tuncay Sonel, governor of the
southeastern town of Birecik.
Ocalan is serving a life sentence on a prison island
off Istanbul for leading a separatist war for
autonomy in Turkey's southeast.
More than 30,000 Turkish soldiers and PKK guerrillas
have been killed since 1984 when the PKK took up
arms for self-rule in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
AP
** 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
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 