Thousands chant for Hizbullah in Charlie Hebdo protest in southeast Turkey

DİYARBAKIR

Around 100,000 people have protested the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Diyarbakır, a Kurdish-majority city in Turkey's southeast, cheering for Turkish Hizbullah.

The Lovers of the Prophet Platform organized the two-hour long Jan. 24 protest at the central İstasyon Square with the participation of thousands of demonstrators coming from nearby towns, Doğan News Agency reported. 
Most speeches, banners and slogans, either in Turkish, Kurdish or Arabic, targeted Charlie Hebdo for publishing Prophet Muhammad cartoons. In reference to the "Je Suis..." slogan, some banners read "I am Hizbullah in Kurdistan," "I am Hamas in Palestine," "I am Malcolm X in America" and "I am Imam Shamil in Chechnya."

"As long as you are the enemies of Allah, we will be your enemies,"  the Free Cause Party (Hüda Par) chair Molla Osman Teyfur said in his speech, vowing to "cut the tongue that talked against the Prophet."

Hüda Par shares the same supporters base with Turkey’s Hizbullah, whose members are mostly Kurdish Islamists. The group was allegedly created by the state in the 1990s to fight the Kurdish movement. Both organizations have been engaging in clashes with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) since the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) last year. Over 40 people were killed in 35 provinces on Oct. 6-7 during the worst unrest in the recent past, with most of those killed dying either at the hands of Hizbullah supporters, allegedly backed by the security forces or the police.