Four children between six and twelve years old were taken into custody in Yüksekova on Tuesday (27 July) under allegations of "having thrown stones to a police car". The people in Yüksekova, a city belonging to Hakkari, a province in the pre-dominantly Kurdish region of south-eastern Turkey, reacted to the arrests with a protest action.

As reported by Yüksekova News, two children were taken into police custody in the city centre on Tuesday because they allegedly had thrown stones at a police car. Tension arouse between the police and a group of people who criticized the arrest of the children. Two more children were taken into police custody in the evening of the same day. The people expressed their protest on the streets and local shop keepers closed the shutters of their shop windows. The police entered the city centre with amour-clad vehicles and intervened against the protestors with the use of water cannons and tear gas.

Children were harassed

Erkan Çapraz from Yüksekova News informed bianet that the children arrested were between six and twelve years old.

Çapraz continued, "The children were treated violently when they were arrested. The other citizens showed according reactions. They tried to take the children away from the policemen. As far as we know, the children were dragged towards the amour-clad vehicle and were made to enter. The children were arrested before any demonstration had happened. Even if they committed a crime, arresting them by the use of such force in unacceptable".

Çapraz said that the children are being kept in the detention area of the Yüksekova District Police Directorate together with adults.

He criticized, "On on hand children are being released from prison due to the amendments of the Anti-Terror Law. On the other hand, children are being taken into police custody like terrorists. Is this how they are going to prevent people from going to the mountains [to join the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party]? What is going to happen with these children who were beaten like that when they were arrested after they will be released again?" (SP/VK)