Tensions ran high in the city on Sunday when a group from the far-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) organized a demonstration to protest the arrests of five of their friends. Believing that the demonstration was in support of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), thousands of locals gathered in the city center. After the crowd was told that three buses carrying DHKP/C members coming from İstanbul to protest the arrests were entering the city, they moved toward the toll booths at the entrance of the city and closed the road to traffic. Nearly 150 people from the buses and the crowd started to fight there and some people were injured. Police intervened in the altercation to prevent further violence.Ali Kılınç, a retired teacher, said he was shocked to witness Sunday’s incidents because there had never been any such clash between different groups in the city before.
“We are still in a shock of being mentioned [in connection] with such an incident. I know almost everyone living in Edirne. I served as a teacher and school administrator here for years. I saw some of the individuals involved in Sunday’s clashes in Edirne for the first time,” said Kılınç.
The owner of a kiosk on Saraçlar Street, Sadi Kalay, said he had never seen the individuals involved in the clash in Edirne before either. “Edirne is a small place. Everyone knows everyone here. We all know when someone moves from the city or moves to the city. But I have never seen those violent people before,” he said.
Kalay also stressed that the occurrence of such an incident in Edirne was meaningful because people of different ethnic backgrounds have been living in peace in the city for years. “I wonder whether some have been disturbed by this solidarity,” he added.
