More Kurdish politicians, journalists arrested in Turkey
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – Turkish authorities detained six Kurdish politicians, remanded a dozen more to prisons, arrested four journalists, and seized three municipalities across the country throughout the weekend.
In Hakkari Province on the border with Iranian Kurdistan, anti-terror police units on Sunday detained the co-mayor of the township of Esendere, Dilber Uzunkopru, in a raid on her house.
Kurdistan24 Diyarbakir Bureau said Turkish authorities in Esendere (Bajêrga Mezin in Kurdish) accused Uzunkopru of membership in the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
In Balikesir, a province in northwestern Turkey, police arrested five local heads of the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) branches.
Among them were HDP co-chairs in the provincial city center, the towns of Bandirma, Ayvalik, and Burhaniye reported the private-owned Dogan news agency, adding three of their colleagues were already in detention since last week.
On Saturday, Turkey’s Interior Ministry seized the administration of the three townships of Hizan and Mutki ve Yolalan in the Kurdish province of Bitlis.
The municipalities were run by the HDP’s regional surrogate the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) mayors.
With the latest seizure, the number of Kurdish-run municipalities taken over by government-appointed trustees rose to 49.
Police had already taken the Bitlis mayors into custody on Wednesday, along with two others from the neighboring Siirt province.
In Sirnak, on the border with the Kurdistan Region, a judge sent the city’s HDP co-chairs Aycan Azma and Ali Balin to prison.
Elsewhere, in the Mediterranean city of Mersin, a court remanded the co-mayor of the central Akdeniz district Yuksel Mutlu of the DBP and HDP’s provincial co-chair Sadun Dogan along with 13 others to prison.
Mutlu was arrested last week in a massive wave of detentions across Turkey that saw over 230 members of the HDP and DBP taken by police.
JOURNALISTS NOT SPARED
Journalists too were the target of weekend arrests, as Diyarbakir and Istanbul police units raided the houses of four reporters working for two news websites and a daily.
A police special operations team on Sunday detained the news director of the October-shuttered Kurdish Dicle News Agency (DIHA) Omer Celik in his Diyarbakir home.
While arresting Celik, the police reportedly beat him and called him “an Armenian bastard,” according to the T24 news website.
Another DIHA reporter Metin Yoksu, a columnist for the Turkish liberal opposition Diken website Tunca Ogreten, and Mahir Kanat of the leftist Birgun daily were detained in Istanbul.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany