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10 KCK members arrested on terror charges
The KCK allegedly functions as the urban arm of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Several suspected KCK members were detained in various cities earlier this month. Among them were mayors of several predominantly Kurdish cities.
The police raid against the group continued on Tuesday in the Yüksekova district of Hakkari.
Police detained 14 people for suspected links to the KCK. Ten of them were arrested and jailed on Thursday. Among them was a PKK terrorist. Police sources also said those who were arrested were also implicated in the shooting of a police officer during clashes on Dec. 27 during violent protests in Hakkari.
Illegal demonstrations and protests were staged in cities throughout Turkey over the weekend by sympathizers of the outlawed PKK to express their outrage at the arrests of KCK members as a part of police operations.
In the meantime, a group of workers at the Sur Municipality in southeastern Diyarbakır protested the detention of a number of former pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) mayors as part of last week’s KCK operations. The protestors handcuffed themselves, complaining that the real objective behind the operations was to hinder Kurdish politicians from engaging in politics.
The detained majors were taken to the police department for interrogation in handcuffs, which drew the ire of Turkey’s Kurdish community.
“The houses of politicians who were elected with the votes of the public were raided by the police as if during a military coup. The operations are aimed at eliminating the public’s role and power in politics. Turkey, which has been working to become a member of the EU, has become a country where political parties are shut down, people are punished for speaking in their mother tongue and representatives of civil society organizations are put under pressure because of their opinions,” complained Mehmet Oğuz, one of the workers.
Oğuz also claimed that police operations in the eastern and southeastern parts of Turkey deepen the country’s problems. “All mayors, politicians and civil society representatives should immediately be released,” he added. The group later held a sit-in protest in front of the municipality building.
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