TURKISH STATE WAGES WAR AGAINST KURDISH CIVILIAN POLITICAL MOVEMENT
By Ayse Gunaysu
Armenian Weekly
December 24, 2009
North Kurdistan People’s Initiative calls for "total revolt"
(Special report from Istanbul by Armenian Weekly columnist Ayse
Gunaysu)
A scene from a Kurdish protest. (photo by Mujgan Arpat) ISTANBUL,
Turkey (A.W.)-The Turkish state started a new war against the
civilian Kurdish political movement in 11 provinces, from Diyarbakir
and neighboring cities to Istanbul and Izmir. Homes of prominent DTP
(the Kurdish party recently closed down by the Constitutional Court)
leaders were broken into at 5 a.m. and around 60 people, including
mayors of Kurdish provinces and districts and the human rights
association chairperson in Diyarbakir were arrested.
Their rights to see their lawyers are suspended for the first 24 hours.
The Human Rights Association (HRA) Diyarbakir branch was among the
places where searches were made. Raids and searches by security forces
in HRA branches was something that did not happen even during the
most difficult times of the emergency rule in the region in the 1990’s.
The news came as a shock as the former DTP leaders had declared that
they gave up on their plans to leave the parliament and decided
to continue their parliamentary struggle. Earlier, all hope had
disappeared because of the closure of DTP just after the launching of
the governments alleged peace initiative, the violent street protests
that followed, and a suspicious ambush on a military unit in Tokat by
a group of guerillas killing 7 soldiers triggering hateful protests
in the west by nationalists.
Diyarbakir Mayor Osman Baydemir gave a press conference in front of
the Diyarbakýr DTP organization offices protesting the arrests. He
was surrounded by DTP MPs and party leaders.
Baydemir, regarded as a most polite and refined Kurdish leader,
used very harsh language, even resorting to the F-word (which is,
in Turkish, much stronger than its equivalents in western languages),
shocking everybody. He added, "We are now violating and will continue
to violate whatever law our arrested party leaders and mayors have
violated." He also said, addressing the government, that they will
not find any hand to hold when they themselves reach out tomorrow to
the Kurdish people.
North Kurdistan People’s Initiative, a section of PKK, called for a
"total revolt" in cities, on the streets and on the mountains.