55 People in Police Custody in Şırnak
Police operations were carried out in the Kurdish-majority city of Şırnak and the township of Cizre in south-eastern Turkey on Saturday (17 September). The operations supposedly aimed at the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK) were done simultaneously at several places in the city centre and the districts. The Provincial Office of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in Şırnak, places related to the BDP in Çizre and other districts and also several private homes were subject to the raids.
A total of 55 people were taken into police custody, among them members of the Şırnak Municipality Council Maruf İke, Aydın Pusat and Cemil Yorgun, the Deputy Major of Çizre, Hanım Onur, Şırnak Branch President of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DİSK) Serhat Uğur, BDP Şırnak Provincial Deputy Chair Salih Gülenç, member of the Provincial General Assembly Sara Ölmez, Democratic Society Congress (DTK) Spokesperson Temel İdin, City Council Spokesman İrfan Kaplan and BDP Provincial Executive Selman Uysal.
A further five people were taken into custody. They were part of a convoy on the way from Cizre and Bitlis to Ankara to attend a demonstration organized by the Democratic Free Women Movement (DÖKH).
Clashes with the police occurred in Cizre when people protested the custodies. Demonstrators in the district of Silopi encountered a police intervention involving tear gas and water cannons. 17-year-old E.K. was reportedly hit by a gas bomb at his head. According to the Fırat news agency, s/he was taken to a hospital in Batman.
Several BDP members were in Diyarbakır when they got the news about the raids. They harshly criticized the operations. BDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş said that these operations were the continuations of the operations started in April 2009.
"The Prime Minister decided for political operations. (...) They are perceived as 'KCK operations'. In fact, they are BDP operations. These are operations aimed at eliminating and dispossessing the BDP. The ones who are deciding for theses operations and who are carrying them out should know that the BDP is the people. The one who wants to finish off the BDP has to face finishing off that people. If you take a chance on that you will be able to finish us off. If not, then you should refrain from these cheap scenarios", the politician said.
Demirtaş pointed out that the entire number of party executives are either in prison or have a file pending at the Court of Appeals. He announced that his party was going to resist.
"We have a government that declares a whole people as terrorists. A people of 10 million [Kurds] support us. If we are terrorists, these 10 million people are terrorists too. The government and prosecutors who describe us as terrorists should be ashamed" Demirtaş announced.
In the meantime, the BDP issued a written statement saying that a delegation including BDP Co-Chair Demirtaş and Group Deputy Chairman Hasip Kaplan was going to visit Cizre and Şırnak on Sunday (18 September) to investigate the situation.
Delegation member Aysel Tuğluk, Co-Chair of the BDP, criticized, "When we say that we want peace, brotherhood and co-existence, the mentality we are facing launches a war against our people". (YY)