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KurdistanObserver.com
Twelve Detained In Violent Kurdish Protest
ISTANBUL, Nov 20 (AFP) Twelve people were
detained Sunday after Kurdish demonstrators hurled Molotov cocktails and stones
at the police during a protest in Turkey's biggest city Istanbul, media reports
said.
The demonstration in Kucukcekmece district was organized to condemn the
alleged involvement of security forces in the bombing of a bookstore in the
southeastern town of Semdinli owned by a former Kurdish guerrilla.
Footage on NTV television showed protestors hurling stones and sticks at the
security forces and an armored police vehicle briefly catching fire by what was
described as a Molotov cocktail.
The police responded with tear gas and water cannons, Anatolia news agency
reported, adding that the crowd chanted slogans in favor of separatist Kurdish
rebels fighting the Ankara government.
The November 9 bombing in Semdinli has sparked violent protests and riots,
mainly in the Kurdish-populated southeast, that claimed four lives.
An angry crowd almost lynched three suspects after the blast.
Two of them were members of the gendarmerie, an army unit policing rural
areas, while the third was a former Kurdish guerrilla now working as an informer
for the security forces.
The government has promised to shed light on the incident. |
