Clashes erupt on anniversary of Ocalan's capture

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (K24) – On Monday, protests in the city of Diyarbakir commemorating the 17 anniversary of Turkey's capture of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan turned violent as police fired tear gas while protesters threw stones.

Ocalan is serving a life sentence in the island prison of Imrali in northwestern Turkey after his capture in 1999.

The pro-Kurdish Democratic Peoples' Party (HDP) and Democratic Regions' Party (BDP)—alongside various other local organizations—held the initially peaceful protest in the central district of Baglar.

Some 2,000 people joined the protest in the central square amid heavily armed Turkish police, reports K24 Diyarbakir.

Addressing the crowd, the co-chair of Free Women's Congress, Ayla Akat—also a former member of Turkish Parliament—stated that the PKK leader remained in solitary confinement and demanded Turkish authorities ease Ocalan's conditions.

Akat said Ocalan was "a guarantee for peace through his ideology of an autonomous Kurdistan and democratic Turkey."

She said Ocalan's capture in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi was an international conspiracy and likened it to other historical Kurdish rebellions such as Sheikh Said in 1925 and Sayid Riza in 1938.

Akat also insisted upon Ocalan's freedom and vowed: "As long as our leadership is not free, we [all Kurds] are not free."

Additionally, the crowd shouted slogans of "Long live Apo" in solidarity with Ocalan. Apo is a nickname for both the male name Abdullah and the Kurdish word for uncle.

Another slogan chanted was "we will win through resistance," in support of PKK affiliates fighting Turkish forces in several cities including the nearby historic Sur District where a curfew has been in place for the past two-and-a-half months.

After several speeches, police fired water cannons and tear gas to disperse the crowd. In response, young protesters threw stones and fireworks. The clashes did not last long as protestors fled into nearby alleys, said a K24 reporter.

Elsewhere in Kurdistan of Turkey in the city of Sanliurfa—the home province of Abdullah Ocalan—police took extraordinary security measures in the city center, according to Dogan News Agency. Police also searched cars with foreign plates and checked identification cards of drivers.

In Kurdistan Region of Iraq, several hundred people gathered in front of the Turkish Consulate in the regional capital of Erbil condemning Ocalan's capture. Waving PKK flags and Ocalan posters, they demanded Turkey free the jailed Kurdish leader.

 
Editing by Benjamin Kweskin and Karzan Sulaivany
(Hesen Kako contributed to this report from Diyarbakir)