Ankara, December 28: At least 10 people have been hurt and a dozen others arrested as bitter clashes broke out between demonstrators and police in predominantly Kurdish towns in southeastern Turkey.
The skirmishes between masked youths and anti-riot police erupted on Sunday in the towns of Hakkari and Yuksekova during protests against last week’s spate of detentions of Kurdish officials over alleged connections to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The group includes eight mayors and prominent Kurdish activist Hatip Dicle, a former lawmaker who previously served ten years in prison for PKK membership.
Also, in the city of Diyarbakir, hundreds of Kurds staged a sit-in to denounce the arrests.
The private news agency Dogan says clashes broke out on Saturday in Yuksekova and Cizre, near the border with Iraq. There were no immediate reports of any arrests or casualties.
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community, including Turkey, Iran, the United States, and European Union member states.
Turkey has witnessed frequent Kurdish protests since October. Kurdish demonstrators complain about the prison conditions of PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence at the maximum-security prison island of Imrali. They are also angry about the closure of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) this month on the grounds that it was linked to the PKK. The Turkish Supreme Court’s verdict banning the DTP sparked violent protests across Turkey’s southeast that have claimed two lives.
Since August, Ankara has been working on a plan to expand Kurdish freedoms in the hope of ending the PKK’s separatist campaign.
——–Agencies