Dozens injured, 300 detained in Kurdish protests in
Northern Kurdistan
Amed, Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, March 22, 2008 (AFP) - Dozens were injured and
300 detained Saturday as police used truncheons and tear gas to break up violent
Kurdish protests in several Kurdish and Turkish cities, police and media reports
said.
Three officials from the Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) were among those
detained on charges of provoking the unrest.
The disturbances erupted when celebrations marking March 21, Newroz day, or the
Kurdish New Year, degenerated into demonstrations in favour of the armed
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The worst clashes took place in the Kurdishcity of Van, where 132 people were
rounded up and 53 others, including 15 policemen, were injured, local police
chief Mehmet Salih Kesmez said.
DTP provincial chairman Abdurrahman Dogar and his deputy Necmi Kalcik were among
those detained, he told Anatolia news agency, adding that the police also raided
the DTP office in Van and seized "illegal" publications.
Three demonstrators and a policeman were in intensive care after the clashes, he
said.
Riot police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse a crowd of some 1,500
people, who chanted slogans in favour of the PKK and its jailed leader Abdullah
Ocalan, set bonfires and barricades in the streets and broke the windows of
shops and government buildings, media reports said.
Footage on the Turkish NTV news channel showed officers hitting protestors with
batons and armored vehicles spraying pressurized water on the crowd.
Young men, hiding their faces behind cloths wrapped around their heads, were
seen hurling stones at the police, who took cover behind plastic shields.
Kesmez blamed the unrest on DTP organisers, who defied a decision by Van
authorities to allow Newroz gatherings only on Friday.
Two DTP parliament members were also among the crowd.
Another 93 people were rounded up in similar unrest in Sanlurfa, Anatolia
reported, adding that 16 protestors were detained in nearby Viransehir late
Friday after Molotov cocktails were hurled at the police, injuring nine
officers.
Sixteen people, among them three policemen, were wounded and at least 17
protestors taken into custody in Hakkari, near the Iraqi border, and in nearby
Siirt, the agency said.
Newroz festivities in other parts of the Kurdish-majority southeast Friday and
Saturday were largely peaceful.
But unrest spread also to cities in western Turkey, which are home to sizeable
Kurdish migrant communities.
Around 30 people were detained in Mersin, on the Mediterranean coast, and in the
Aegean city of Izmir, where police also seized petrol bombs the suspects
allegedly planned to use in Newroz protests, Anatolia said.
The DTP provincial chairman in Izmir, Mehmet Bayraktar, was also detained after
allegedly calling for a "Newroz rebellion" and praising the PKK, it said.
