Turkish police arrest Kurdish protester in Diyarbakir (Amed) city in Turkish Kurdistan, August 21, 2019. Photo: AFP
DIYARBAKIR-AMED, Turkey Kurdistan,— Turkish police on Wednesday blocked protests over the government’s sacking of three mayors in the Kurdish southeast accused of having links to Kurdish PKK militants, an AFP correspondent said.
At least 200 people attempted to stage a protest march to Diyarbakir’s historic Sur district but were met with police water cannons and seven were detained, the correspondent said.
Around 500 officers also surrounded a sit-down protest of 200 people in the main Kurdish city of Diyarbakir (Amed) in Turkish Kurdistan.
On Tuesday Turkish riot police fired water cannon, tear gas and struck protesters with batons to disperse protesters demonstrating in against the ousting of three Kurdish mayors five months after they were elected.
The interior ministry also fired the Van and Mardin mayors, who like that of Diyarbakir are members of the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), on Monday.
In all three cases, Ankara-appointed governors were given authority over the cities’ administrations.
Van Governor Mehmet Emin Bilmez took the further step of dissolving the municipality’s HDP-majority assembly.
The government says the HDP is a political front for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.
The HDP denies ties to the PKK, which is on the terror blacklists of Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
More than 500 people have been detained in the last three days, including HDP members and supporters protesting against the mayors’ removal, a party source told AFP.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu played down the protests, saying there was no serious unrest and life was continuing as normal, in remarks to foreign media in Istanbul.
He said the dismissals were necessary to “prevent the abuse of democracy” by people who, he claimed, have used municipal resources to support “terrorists”.
“The main problem is the attitude of the HDP which is defying the state by nominating as mayors these people who already face prosecution… They are treating democracy as a Trojan Horse.”
The Kurdish mayors all won large majorities in March 2019 local elections.
Separately, the provincial governor of Sirnak, along the borders with Syrian Kurdistan and Iraqi Kurdistan, said one soldier was killed on Wednesday and three wounded after clashes with the PKK in the district of Silopi.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 79-million population. More than 40,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels, have been killed in the conflict.
A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974 and currently serving a life sentence in Turkey, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.
Read more about Turkey’s policy against Kurds
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