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Kurds clash with Turkish police in third
day of protests in southeastern Turkey
18.2.2008
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February 18, 2008
DIYARBAKIR, Kurdish Southeastern region of
Turkey, -- Kurdish youths hurled fire bombs and
stones at police from behind a barricade on Sunday,
in the third day of violent protests in Turkey's
mainly Kurdish southeast (Turkey Kurdistan), a news
agency reported.
Clashes between police and Kurdish demonstrators
broke out on Friday during annual demonstrations
denouncing Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan's
capture and imprisonment nine years ago. They
intensified after a Kurdish youth died of head
injuries during protests in the town of Cizre
Friday.
On Sunday, a group of about 200 Kurds throwing
stones and fire bombs set up a barricade with trash
cans, electricity poles and road signs on a highway
near Cizre, close to the border with Iraq, the Dogan
news agency reported.
Police moved in with armored personnel carriers to
disperse the group.
There was no immediate information on any injuries.
Earlier, authorities had distributed soccer balls to
youths in an effort to dissuade them from joining
the protests there,www.ekurd.net
Dogan reported. Still,
some of the boys could be seen hurling stones at
police, it said.
Officers wielding truncheons also broke up a similar
demonstration by about 50 Kurds in the nearby city
of Batman, a local government official said.
The city's mayor and a legislator claimed they were
injured after being beaten by police while trying to
calm the crowd, Dogan reported.
"Truncheons hit my head one after the other," Dogan
quoted legislator Bengi Yildiz as saying. |
Turkish police officers clash with stone throwing
protesters in Istanbul February 17, 2008.
Rioters chanting slogans in support of the Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) .
Protesters were demonstrating to protest against the
killing of a 15-year-old Kurdish boy during a
demonstration in support of the illegal Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) on Friday in Cizre in mainly
Kurdish southeastern Turkey
Turkish riot police stand next to a burning
barricade after they dispersed stone-throwing
protesters in the southeastern Turkish town of Cizre |
"My finger was injured. They beat me even though
they knew who I was," he said, adding that he would
sue the police officers involved.
Police in Istanbul also broke up two small
demonstrations protesting the Kurdish boy's death,
the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.
Authorities did not say how the boy was killed.
Dogan reported that he had been hit on the head by
stones during a clash with police, but demonstrators
claimed that he was hit by a police armored
personnel carrier.
Ocalan, the founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party,
or PKK, was captured in Kenya after being forced to
leave a Greek diplomatic mission there in 1999.
He was sentenced to death for leading an insurgency
fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey's southeast.
His sentence was commuted to life in prison. He is
the sole inmate on a prison island near Istanbul.
Over 39,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish 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. A large Turkey's
Kurdish community openly sympathise with the Kurdish
PKK rebels.
The PKK demanded Turkey's recognition of the Kurds'
identity in its constitution and of their language
as a native language along with Turkish in the
country's Kurdish areas,www.ekurd.net
the party also demanded an
end to ethnic discrimination in Turkish laws and
constitution against Kurds, ranting them full
political freedoms.
The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by
the U.S. and the EU.
AP | Agencies
**
Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in
Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
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 over 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 over 25 million ethnic Kurds, a
large Turkey's Kurdish community 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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