Detention of 29 DTP Members in Tunceli

At around 4 am in the night from 22 June to 23 June, homes and workplaces of members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) were raided by the police and 30 party members were taken into custody.

Accused of relations with PKK

One of them, Vedat Emir, was released after making a statement. However, according to information bianet has obtained from the DTP Tunceli province headquarters, 29 more, members of the "Patriotic Democratic Youth Parliament (YDG-M) have been accused of "spreading PKK propaganda and recruiting mountain personnel for the organisation."

Following an order from a prosecutor with special powers at the Malatya 3rd Heavy Penal Court, anti-terrorism teams of the Tunceli police raided the DTP district building during the night and detained 30 people. Computer records were also confiscated.

The case has been classified as confidential.

According to the Milliyet newspaper, there were concurrent operations in the provinces of Diyarbakır, Ankara, Van and Bursa.

The Tunceli Emek newspaper cited the Tunceli governor's office as listing 23 people in custody.

Province party chair Murat Polat said, "The thirty people whose homes were raided and who were taken into custody are members of our party's Youth Parliament. This organisation of our party is legal. Making connections between such organisations in our party and the PKK is nothing but an attempt to make such organisations and our party illegal."

Operations since April

Polat said that the operations against the DTP which started on 14 April were an attempt to sabotage the process of solving the Kurdish question.

Around 500 members of the DTP have been taken into police custody since 14 April, and they were not told what they were being accused of. A total of 267 people were later arrested. (BÇ/AG)