http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=02/03/23/2919853 Turkey: Two Are Left Dead In Clashes Between Kurds & Police
posted by direct action foundation on Saturday March 23 2002 @ 08:08PM PST March 21, Turkey: Two Are Left Dead In Clashes Between Kurds & Police DIYARBAKIR: Thousands of Kurdish youths put up barricades and battled police in a southern Turkish city after authorities banned Kurds from celebrating their New Year. Two demonstrators were killed. Riot police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse crowds in the city of Mersin, where at least 40 police and 20 protesters were injured. At least 200 people were detained. Authorities banned celebrations of Nowruz _the Farsi-language word for "new year" - in Mersin and other southeast cities where they said the festivities would be "exploited by outlawed groups to cause provocations." Several thousand Kurds in Mersin hurled rocks and bricks at personnel carriers and authorities to protest the ban. Among the injured was small girl crushed by a huge metal garbage container accidentally knocked over by a personnel carrier. The girl appeared to be seriously injured and was rushed to hospital. A Kurdish man was killed by police in the clashes. Hours before the protests began, two policemen were killed in Mersin when an armored personnel carrier ran off a bridge while patrolling the streets. The clashes recalled those at Nowruz celebrations at the height of the 15-year-conflict between autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels and Turkish troops. Police regularly clashed then with Kurdish demonstrators who used the festival to assert demands for Kurdish rights. The conflict has left some 37,000 dead, though fighting has eased since the rebels declared a unilateral cease-fire in 1999. The ancient Persian festival - celebrated the first day of spring in countries including Afghanistan and Iran - is mainly a Kurdish event in Turkey. In Istanbul, where the festival was also banned, police used water cannons to disperse demonstrating Kurds. Police said more than 540 were detained. In Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, hundreds of thousands of Kurds gathered in a field outside the city, arriving on foot or crammed in the back of trucks. The police presence was heavy and included tanks. However, no major troubles were reported. Turkey, which is seeking membership in the European Union, is under increasing pressure from human rights groups to grant cultural rights to Kurds. For more information on the Kurdish struggle for self-determination, we recommend that you read Noam Chomsky's excellent book American Interventionism.
