10 Members of Pro-Kurdish Party in Custody

Ten people were taken into police custody in the course of an operation against the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in Mersin on the eastern tip of the Mediterranean on Tuesday (13 September).

Raids on several private homes were carried out simultaneously on Tuesday morning. BDP Party Council Member Seyithan Kaya was taken into police custody together with BDP Mersin Provincial Executives Nurettin Artuğ and Osman Aka, Mediterranean Municipality Council Members Selim Ekinci and Hasan Arık, activist of the Democratic Freedom Women's Movement (DÖKH) Bedriye Bükte, Necmettin Pala and Nasır Özmen.

"The 1,400 people on the list announced by Altaylı are getting clear"

BDP Deputy for Mersin Ertuğrul Kürkçü evaluated the latest developments for bianet. He said that the government started jamming security policies of the Kurdish question with the latest operations.

"A list comprising 1,400 names was mentioned by [journalist] Fatih Altaylı. In the course of these operations we started understanding who is on the list", Kürkçü remarked and said that the recent custodies and arrests could not be brought in line with the law.

Kürkçü referred to a column written by Altaylı saying that after the religious holidays in the end of August, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was likely to start operations for the arrest of a total of 1,400 people allegedly affiliated with terrorist organizations.

Kürkçü continued, "One cannot speak of any crimes since there is nothing apart from regular party activities. These people are peaceful persons without any affiliations to weapons, violence or despotism. Thus, we want them to be released as soon as possible".

Kürkçü indicated that they were going to discuss the issue at the group meeting in Diyarbakır on Wednesday (14 September).

"It seems that the operations will continue the way they were started. However, a serious opposition against this course is mandatory because these custodies are not based on any concrete incident. They are just implementing a list that was defined beforehand".

"Right now, more than 2,500 people are in prison only in the scope of the trial against the Union of Kurdistan Communities [KCK]", Kürkçü emphasized.

"They are not allowed to talk to their lawyers or anybody else"

Mahmut Karabulut, Provincial Deputy Chair of the BDP in Mersin, claimed that the custodies were being carried out as part of the KCK operation.

Karabulut mentioned that "as usual" the file was confidential. The ten people in custody were not allowed to talk to anybody including their lawyers, he said.

"Due to the language used by the political power after the elections we could guess that the operations were going to be continued. The operations launched in Adana after the religious holidays have now leaped to Mersin", he noted and added that he did not believe that the people in custody were going to be released but that the mass custodies and arrests were going to be continued instead.

Mayor Mehmet Fazıl Türk recalled the news of journalist Altay published after the religious holidays and claiming that 1,400 people were going to be arrested. He said that Adana and Mersin were the starting points for this operation. (EKN/VK)