Kurdish citizens have been holding demonstrations since last weekend in protest of alleged illegal abuse and torture of the terrorist group's leader, Abdullah Öcalan, who is serving a life sentence on İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara. The illegal protests, mainly in the Southeast but also in İstanbul, left one Kurdish protester dead in the eastern city of Doğubeyazıt on Monday and several protesters and police officers wounded.
The appearance of children at the front lines of some of the events -- many of which were violent demonstrations involving clashes with police forces and property destruction -- disturbed many across the nation as citizens condemned the PKK for stopping at nothing, not even the exploitation of children, to perpetrate its campaign of terror.
In Diyarbakır last Tuesday, PKK supporters threw stones at an ambulance that was en route to the hospital carrying a pregnant woman. Faruk Seven, the driver of the ambulance, was injured in the attack. He said three separate groups of protestors attacked his vehicle: “The first group was children between the ages of 10 and 12. The second group was adults. … The third group of protestors was around the age of 18.”
On Wednesday, a group of protestors, including children, gathered in the southeastern province of Mersin to release a press statement and attacked police with stones when the police refused to grant them permission to hold a rally.
Where are the parents?
Terrorist activities and provocations leading to violent confrontations between law enforcement and the public doubtlessly have a negative effect upon those who experience such events, whether as participants or bystanders. It’s no secret that residents of Turkey’s tumultuous Southeast experience a form of psychological trauma in addition to the loss of life, limb and property as the PKK continues its campaign of separatist terror. Children, though, are the most vulnerable members of society, and their participation in pro-PKK rallies and demonstrations, some of which turn violent, was cause for statements of disapprobation from psychologists across Turkey that were widely published in the Turkish press last week.
Professor Aytekin Sır, vice rector at Dicle University and a psychiatry instructor, said last week in an interview with the Anatolia news agency that parents were at fault when their children were in the streets participating in pro-terror provocations. “Those primarily responsible for the usage of children in illegal demonstrations are mothers and fathers. If families don’t step up and take responsibility for these children, then the state must. If children are being left irresponsibly in the streets, then the state must step in and take control and settle the children into orphanages,” he said.
The professor warned that the danger of children’s involvement in pro-terror demonstrations and riots put them at risk beyond physical danger, and asserted that children see such activities as a sort of game: “Children have innocent thoughts and suppositions and think of certain events taking place in the streets as a sort of game. They perceived these events as games and acted accordingly. … Children see their friends injured and are exposed to pepper spray gas. Children that come face-to-face with events like this will be filled with negative emotions. These experiences affect children’s worldviews negatively. And it’s inevitable that we see traces of antisocial behavior in children like this. This leads to a generation that doesn’t recognize society’s rules, doesn’t listen to anyone, including their mothers and fathers, abuses drugs, doesn’t stop at red lights and doesn’t listen to what is taught in school. A generation like this will harm everybody. And, in the end, society will be harmed again. Children that are used in events like these will be inclined toward violence and when they grow older they will be a constant source of trouble.”
Politicians, security authorities say PKK responsible
Different political groups and security authorities accused the PKK last week of organized recruitment of children into its ranks.
The Batman Police Department in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish Southeast released statements saying that the terrorist group was using children as tools in its activities because it was failing to gather sufficient supporters. The PKK bosses are recruiting children in the 15-16 age group and sending them to chant pro-PKK slogans, throw stones at police and schools and bring down Turkish flags. “The children are being enticed by chocolate and money. They’re forced to throw stones at the police. They are frightened and pressured into being used as tools in demonstrations.”
Şırnak Police Chief Salih Gökalp told Anatolia that the PKK and its proponents intended to use children as a propaganda tool by involving them in demonstrations and that the terrorist group wanted to ensure that tensions are continued by securing children’s participation. He said that the children’s participation emphasized the PKK’s disregard for the value of human life.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also alleged that there was a campaign under way to exploit children for terrorist objectives, saying that the “use” of children in recent PKK activities demonstrated the group’s ignorance and ferocity.
DTP deputy: There is a culture of collective resistance
Speaking to Sunday’s Zaman last week, pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) Diyarbakır deputy Akın Birdal expressed a different view. He says that the assertion that children are being drawn into participation in such events is just polemics.
The PKK is most active -- and PKK supporters most numerous -- in Turkey’s Southeast and East, impoverished regions marked by unemployment, illiteracy, child labor and ethnic tension between Kurds and Turks. Birdal drew a comparison between the situation in the Southeast and that of frustrated children living in the difficult conditions in occupied Palestine and said that the culture of the Middle East includes a component of collective resistance.
“Families experience painful events and troubles together, as a family,” he said, noting that this also included children. It’s normal, he said, for children to also participate in events unfolding around them that are part of their lives, just as politically inactive adults would participate in a funeral march.
Improvement of conditions needed to save all from terror
What is certain is that until Turkey’s Kurdish issue is resolved, adults and children alike will continue to fall victim to the side effects of ethnic tension and terror. The Batman Police Department statement also expressed an awareness of the need to reach out to children and their families and help to alleviate the causes of economic discontent. “Instead of asking why they are using children,” the DTP’s Birdal said, “You should ask why this is happening to the Kurdish people.”
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