Casualties at demonstration for PKK leader Öcalan
DIYARBAKIR – An unknown number of people were wounded during riots in the South-eastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, among them a Kurdish parliamentarian and the Mayor of Diyarbakir, Osman Baydemir.
BDP MP Pervin Buldan broke her foot during the riots. (pic courtsey of colleague from Azadiya Welat)
The riots started when thousands of people wanted to demonstrate for the release from detention of Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the violent Kurdish movement the PKK. No permission was given for the demonstration.
Selahattin Demirtas, parliamentarian for pro-Kurdish BDP, explained earlier in a press statement why, according to the BDP, a demonstration was necessary. Demirtas: ‘We want peace. To achieve that, Öcalan needs to be talked to, and that’s why he needs to be set free.’
According to the BDP no permission is needed to hold a demonstration, and that’s why it wasn’t cancelled despite the ban.
The police didn’t give the MP’s permission to go to the protest site, either by bus or on foot. Way before the scheduled beginning of the demonstration, riots started in several places in the city. Stones and Molotov cocktails were being thrown and the police used a lot of water cannons and tear gas.
PKK leader Öcalan has been locked up on the prison island of Imrali ever since he was arrested in 1999. He has been in solitary confinement for almost a year, having no contact with his family or lawyers.
The riots continued on Saturday late into the afternoon.
I don’t agree with the description of ‘riot’ for the events of July 14th. Turkey was determined to suppress the demonstration calling for a peaceful negotiated settlement to the Kurdish Question and release of Abdullah Ocalan. They cyber attacked Kurdish media and even our #TwitterKurds hashtag used to expose Turkey’s crimes against the Kurds was mysteriously blocked for over 4 hours as the police attacked the demo seemingly targetting Kurdish MPs.
An unknown number of people were wounded during a demonstration when riot police tried to stop demonstrators by force.
Paul, do you think we should let arsonists and violent attackers run around willy-nilly? Do you think the police shouldn’t be allowed to protect themselves?
Hevallo Azad, don’t worrry, we don’t care if you agree with the description of “riot” for the events of July 14th. Even if it’s a riot, you will deny it is. If there’s a PKK attack that murders children, you will deny the PKK did it. We don’t care what you have to say.
LOL, we don’t “suppress” any of your nonsensical “demonstrations” where you trot out a few thousand illiterate uneducated people against their own free will to partake in something they know nothing about. There’s no “kurdish question”. There’s a kurdish terrorist problem. You are in no position ot make a “negotiated settlement” (whatever that is). Releasing Ocalan is out of the question. I suggest you ask your American masters to find a way to release all of those detained in Guantanamo Bay and resurrect bin Laden because that would be less amoral then releasing Ocalan. There are no “crimes against kurds”. Independent private citizens “hacking” websites only do so because those websites are PKK propaganda outlets. The police didn’t attack anything and if anything the “demo” attacked the police. Nobody was targetting “kurdish MPs” and these terrorists are allowed in Parliament so any complaint of yours is irrelevant.
By the way, I want to ask why you, as a kurd who is not from Turkiye and is obviously from either Iran, Syria, or Iraq and living in a European ghetto, is so obsessed with Turkiye when you have no ancestor who has ever lived within its borders and you have nothing to do with our country and obviously have no knowledge of it. You are living proof that kurdish nationalism is a fraud. By the way, why is it that kurds in different parts of Turkiye are unable to understand eachother. Why is it that kurds in different parts of the Middle East can’t understand each other (for example, kurds in Turkiye can’t understand kurds in Syria/Iraq/Iran). Why is it that when genetic testing is done the kurds in Turkiye don’t resemble the kurds in Iraq? Why is it that the kurds in Iraq are mostly genetically Arab? Why is it that these different “dialects” and types of kurds look actually more like separate ethnic groups?