Prime Minister voices support for KCK operations

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expressed support for the ongoing operations against the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) while speaking yesterday at a meeting of his party’s provincial heads.

“As a prime minister, I support the [anti] KCK operations. You can see how so many things have come out in the open during this operation that was undertaken [to protect] our national unity and fraternity,” Erdoğan said.

Law enforcement officers Tuesday detained some 46 persons, mostly lawyers, in simultaneous operations conducted in 16 provinces as part of the ongoing KCK trials, including in the southeastern provinces of Diyarbakır, Batman, Şırnak, Siirt, Van and Hakkari.

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

Some 19 lawyers among the detained suspects were then sent to Istanbul yesterday by plane, while the remaining suspects were interrogated at police departments, according to reports.

The suspects, 42 of whom are reported to be lawyers, were taken under custody due to strong evidence that some lawyers are involved in the PKK’s “Leadership Committee,” according to reports.

Meanwhile, unidentified individuals raided Professor Büşra Ersanlı’s office in the Anadolu Hisarı Campus of Istanbul’s Marmara University late Nov. 19.

İlkay Bahçetepe, Ersanlı’s lawyer and a legal expert working for the Education Personnel Union (Eğitim-Sen), said they would pursue the case.

“[The offenders] smashed the office door by kicking it and broke in at around 8 p.m. on Saturday evening,” Bahçetepe said. Ersanlı was arrested in connection with the KCK case on Nov. 1 along with prominent publisher Ragıp Zarakolu. k HDN

Compiled from Anatolia news agency and Doğan news agency stories by the Daily News staff in Istanbul.