TURKEY tr-politics
Tens of thousands march for mass graves in SE Turkey
SİİRT – Doğan News Agency (DHA) | 3/29/2011 12:00:00 AM |
About 40,000 people marched to Kasapderesi in the province of Siirt yesterday to draw attention to mass graves in southeastern Turkey.
About 40,000 people marched to Kasapderesi in the province of Siirt yesterday to draw attention to mass graves in southeastern Turkey.
The bodies of 200 Kurds are allegedly buried in a mass grave in Kasapderesi, which was the first location in Turkey at which bodies from mass graves were dumped in 1989.
The 40,000 protesters, who came from Van, Hakkari, Batman, Mardin, Şırnak, Iğdır and other provinces in the Southeast Anatolia region at the cell of the Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, first gathered in the center of Siirt and then marched for about two kilometers to Kasapderesi, asking for the mass graves to be opened in a just and decent way by public authorities. The march was organized to coincide with the anniversary of the death of Mahsun Korkmaz, one of the founders of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, who was killed in 1986 in an armed conflict with security forces.
“If [the government] does not wish to get involved in the mass grave persecution, the mass graves must be opened completely in the framework of international law,” said Selahattin Demirtaş, the leader of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish BDP, in a statement at the protest. “Nobody can say an account has been called for the mass graves in [Kasapderesi], the first ones in the region, without having done so,” Demirtaş said, addressing Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP.
“We have gathered from all cities in the region for the martyrs,” said Ahmet Türk, co-chairman of the Democratic Society Congress, or DTK, in his speech, adding that thousands of people had gathered in Siirt to make their freedom voices heard. Both Demirtaş and Türk addressed protesters in Kurdish.
Other prominent BDP figures also joined the march, including BDP group deputy chairmen Bengi Yıldız and Ayla Akat Ata and parliament deputies Hasip Kaplan, Emine Ayna, Osman Özçelik, Pervin Buldan, Sebahat Tuncel, Özdal Ülçer, Hamit Geylani and Fatma Kurtalan.
Demirtaş also replied to Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan’s recent accusations that BDP had tensed up the region for the sake of getting a post, saying that all BDP candidates for the coming elections would quit if the government would meet their requests. “Esteemed Prime Minister; accept all our requests for education in the mother language, elections threshold, leaving free the political prisoners and the cease to operations, then we will not be candidates [for the general elections],” he said.
The protesters could not march back to the center of Siirt, as the road was blocked by barricades put up by the police. In return, protesters started a “sitting” protest. While most of the people started leaving the venue, about 50 people who kept protesting were scattered only after the police intervened with tear gas.