Mayor of Turkey's Cizre suspended by ministry over terror charges

ŞIRNAK – Doğan News Agency

DHA photo

Turkey's Interior Ministry has suspended the mayor of a southeastern town over inciting people to armed uprising and terror propaganda, hours after an announcement that the curfew would be lifted.

Interior Minister issued the decision over an investigation launched by the Chief Prosecutor's Office in Cizre into İmret, charging her with inciting people to armed uprising and terror propaganda.

A curfew which was implemented late Sept. 4 in the Cizre district of southeastern Turkey’s Şırnak province would be removed as of 7:00 a.m. on Sept. 12, Şırnak Governor’s office said on Sept. 11 soon after three markets and one bakery were permitted to open with telephone and internet lines also opened to access. 

The GSM and internet lines were reportedly opened for usage during the day on Sept. 11 but would be once again blocked at night, while three markets and one bakery, which serves at most five loaves of bread to each family, were allowed to open for citizens to meet their needs after eight days of being forcefully confined to their homes due to the curfew announced on Sept. 4, Doğan News Agency reported.

Ali Rıza Alaboyun, the energy and natural resources minister of the interim government, told a group of journalists on Sept. 11 in Ankara that power distribution units in Cizre could have been damaged on a small scale “but the electricity flowing to Cizre and the transformers were actively working.”

Meanwhile, five police officers were wounded as they were patrolling the area inside a vehicle at around 10:45 a.m. on Sept. 11 when members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) detonated a bomb they had planted under a manhole, the Şırnak governorate said in a statement. 

It added the responding police officers were targeted with hand grenades and gunfire as they tried to evacuate the wounded officers from the scene. 

A group of around 300 attorneys from various provinces across Turkey attempted to march to Cizre to defend the rights of the citizens in the district but were stopped by police forces with anti-riot vehicles at the outskirts of southeastern province of Mardin’s Midyat district on Sept. 11, daily BirGün reported on its website. The Şırnak governorate also stated the initial examination of a baby around 35 days old, who died in Cizre, did not indicate it was killed by sharp object and the cause death would be determined later in the general autopsy.

Meanwhile, Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks has urged Turkish authorities to allow independent observers to enter Cizre, amid growing concerns of serious human rights violations. 

“Thus far, the information provided by the authorities does not allay all concerns. I urge the authorities to ensure immediate access to Cizre by independent observers, including by Turkey’s national human rights structures, in order to dispel the rumors of human rights violations perpetrated by security forces. I hope for a quick end to this emergency situation,”

Muiznieks said in a written statement Sept. 11. “I have received reports that public life, including essential services such as healthcare, and means of communication have been severely disrupted as a result [of the curfew], and that entry and exit from the city have been barred. More disturbingly, I have also received serious allegations of disproportionate use of force by security forces against civilians,” he said.