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Two Kurdish boys killed in southeastern
Turkey, allegedly were PKK rebels
31.12.2011 |
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Witnesses say Turkish police shot two boys in
Diyarbakir, the Kurdish region in southeastern
Turkey. Photo: ANF
Witnesses say Turkish police shot two boys
December
31, 2011
DIYARBAKIR, The Kurdish
region of Turkey, —Two Kurdish rebels died Saturday
in Turkey's southeastern Diyarbakir city in a
shootout after a police raid on their hideout,
police said.
The members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK) members refused to heed a police call to
surrender and threw grenades, television reports
said.
A local police official said two rebels died in an
ensuing gunbattle and added that two rifles and
three hand grenades had been seized.
Police said the fingerprints of the dead men
revealed they were among the perpetrators of a
recent attack in the Kurdish-dominated area that
left two police officers dead.
According to reports coming through two young people
have been killed by police in Diyarbakir, in the
Kayapınar area. Earlier independent reports said
that during a house raid by police a clash broke out
and two wounded people threw themselves or were
thrown out from the building, ANF News agency
reported.
It is now claimed by eyewitnesses that in fact the
two boys have been shot on the street by the police.
The governor of the city has told the press that two
people died as a result of an armed clash.
Eyewitnesses contradict this version of events and
claim that the two youngster have been shot on the
street and no clash was lived.
BDP, İHD (Human Rights Association), Mazkum-Der and
Diyarbakir lawyers are on the scene.
As circumstances of the death of two boys remain
uncleared, new witnesses say the boys were shot by
plain clothes policemen. Also people in the building
say police have taken all the mobile phones in the
building.
The raid comes after a botched Turkish strike in the
region which killed 35 Kurdish civilians,www.ekurd.net
prompting the PKK to issue a call for an "uprising."
Turkey's military command said it carried out the
air strike after a spy drone spotted a group moving
toward its sensitive southeastern border under cover
of darkness late Wednesday, in an area known to be
used by militants.
But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted
Friday that the victims were smugglers and not
separatist rebels as the army had originally
claimed.
Since it was established in 1984, the PKK has been
fighting the Turkish state, which still denies the
constitutional existence of Kurds, to establish a
Kurdish state in the south east of the country, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000
lives.
But now its aim is the creation an autonomous
Kurdish region
and more cultural rights for ethnic Kurds who
constitute the greatest minority in Turkey, numbering more than 20 million. A large Turkey's
Kurdish community openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK rebels.
PKK's demands included releasing PKK detainees,
lifting the ban on education in Kurdish, paving the
way for an autonomous democrat Kurdish system within
Turkey, reducing pressure on the detained PKK leader
Abdullah Öcalan, stopping military action against
the Kurdish party and recomposing the Turkish
constitution.
Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population
as a distinct minority. It has allowed some cultural
rights such as limited broadcasts in the Kurdish
language and private Kurdish language courses with
the prodding of the European Union, but Kurdish
politicians say the measures fall short of their
expectations.
The PKK is considered as 'terrorist' organization by
Ankara, U.S., the PKK continues to be on the
blacklist list in EU despite court ruling which
overturned a decision
to place the Kurdish rebel group PKK and its
political wing on the European Union's terror list.
Copyright © 2011, respective author or news agency,
firatnews.com | AFP | ekurd.net | Agencies
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