Dozens of Kurds arrested in Turkey
14.02.2010 15:24 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkish police arrested 86 people in the ten
provinces on suspicion of having links with the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers’ Party. The police conducted operations in several provinces
in the east and south-east of the country, in Adana and Istanbul.
Arrests are carried out to prevent protest actions in connection with
the eleventh anniversary of Abdullah Ocalan’s arrest.
According to preliminary information, members of Party for Peace and
Democracy, the Kurdish political movement, the authorities suspect of
having links with the Kurdistan Workers Party (KWP), are among
arrested, Lenta.ru reported.
The main objective of the KWP militants is an independent Kurdish
state in southeastern Turkey. The Kurds also the majority of the
population in some northern provinces of Iraq, Syria and the
north-west Iran.
The leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, Abdullah Ocalan was
arrested in February 1999 in Kenya. In November the same year he was
sentenced to death as the head of the organization, considered by the
Turkish authorities as terrorist entity. However, he was given a stay
of execution. In August 2002, Turkey’s parliament abolished the death
penalty, and after two months Ocalan sentence was commuted to life
imprisonment.
According to authorities, since 1984 at the hands of KWP 30 thousand
to 45 thousand people have died in Turkey.