Kurds ask for rights amid 40 detentions

ISTANBUL / DİYARBAKIR - Doğan News Agency

Selahattin Demirtaş, Co-Chair of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), says equal rights should be given to Kurds. AA photo

More than 40 people were detained as part of the ongoing Kurdish Communities Union (KCK) operations yesterday in Istanbul and southeastern Turkey.

Law enforcement officials conducted sweeping operations in Istanbul and the southeastern province of Diyarbakır, rounding up dozens of suspects in connection with the ongoing KCK trials.

Twenty suspects were also taken under custody Jan. 10 in the district of Silopi in the southeastern province of Şırnak, while another 15 suspects, including three minors, claimed to have been part of the KCK’s youth organization and were detained in Istanbul.

Meanwhile, 22 suspects were taken into custody in Diyarbakır yesterday as the 34th hearing of the KCK investigation kicked off. A total of 152 suspects, 104 of them arrested pending trial, face terrorism related charges there.

The KCK is the alleged urban wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK is recognized as a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union and Turkey.

Selahattin Demirtaş, Co-Chair of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), said equal rights should be given to Kurdish people and their politicians, in a meeting held in Diyarbakır yesterday.

Seven Kurdish parties, including the BDP, the Rights and Liberties Party (HAKPAR) and the Participatory Democracy Party (KADEP) made demands for the new constitution, saying Kurdish people’s identity must be recognized and guaranteed.

BDP-led parties also asked for right to association, giving Kurdish names to political parties and Kurdish language to be counted as an official language in the new constitution.

“For the first time in Turkish Republic history, a democratic constitution chance was caught. For the solution of the Kurdish matter, this historical chance can be a peaceful society’s base,” Demirtaş said.