Over 30 detained, place of MP raided in KCK roundup
ISTANBUL / ANKARA
Many prople gathered in front of Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) building in Istanbul following the news on detentions targeting 123 addresses in 17 cities. DAILY NEWS photo, Emrah GÜREL
Police detained 33 people in searches targeting 123 addresses, including a house where BDP independent deputy Leyla Zana was staying in Ankara, as part of ongoing Kurdish Communities Union (KCK) operations Jan. 13.Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (KESK) headquarters in Ankara and local buildings of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) were among the premises searched in 17 provinces including Istanbul, Diyarbakır, İzmir, Ankara, Siirt and Adana.
“Even the chief of staff is being tried on charges of terrorism. Journalists are imprisoned; everyone is in fear in Turkey. I just want to say ‘shame on them’ for raiding my house,” Zana told reporters at Istanbul’s Atatürk International Airport as she was leaving for Brussels to visit her son.
The Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office announced that the Ankara house they searched did not belong to Zana herself, and they confirmed that it was one of the properties of suspect Cahit Yoldaş. Zana was reported to have had belongings inside.
Co-chair of BDP Selahattin Demirtaş said all the operations were political. “If the opposition, especially the Kurdish community, is sought to be silenced, the reaction will be to not obey,” Demirtaş added.
In a press meeting in Ankara, co-chair of BDP Gültan Kışanak said the operations were planned.
Meanwhile, members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) said the KCK operations were necessary.
“Whoever is involved with the KCK organization, necessary measures must be taken against them,” AKP Deputy Group Chairman Mustafa Elitaş said in Ankara on Jan. 13.
Parliament Speaker Cemil Çiçek said it was important that the ongoing legal proceedings should be made in a way not to create any suspicions in the public to distrust the justice system.
Some 33 people, including Fatma Kurtulan, a former Van deputy for the now-closed Democratic Society Party (DTP), and Tuncer Bakirhan, a deputy of now-defunct pro-Kurdish Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP), and other BDP officials were detained. The searches were conducted in BDP buildings in several cities as well as the KESK office in Ankara. Zana’s mobile computer and documents were seized by the police, according to reports.
Meanwhile, the police found 6.9 kg of C-4 explosives in an excavation conducted in Istanbul’s Başakşehir district as part of the KCK probe.
A FORMER DEPUTY’S CALLS
KOCAELİ – Hürriyet Daily News
The disciplinary body of a high security prison in the northwestern province of Kocaeli has rejected former deputy Mahmut Alınak’s demand that a letter he wrote detailing humiliating jail practices be sent to the prime minister.
The former deputy said in his letter that prison authorities demanded that they strip naked but that prisoners refused to comply with the order on the grounds that the treatment was humiliating.
“They searched us all inside a room, stripping us naked one by one. We later learned that the same treatment was in effect in all F-type prisons,” he wrote. “Isolation that matches the American Guantanamo Prison rules supreme [here].”
Alınak’s letter details complaints about frequent, invasive body searches.
Alınak, a former deputy of the Democracy Party (DEP), was taken into custody in the eastern province of Kars last month as part of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) case.
