Two more schools burnt down in Hakkari

HAKKARİ – Doğan News Agency

Schools are burnt down every year in Turkey's southeastern provinces, by groups protesting obstacles to education in the Kurdish language. DHA Photo

Two more schools were burnt down late on Sept. 22 in the southeastern Anatolian province of Hakkari, in protest at obstacles to education in the Kurdish language.

A group, reportedly members of the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), a youth organization linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), threw Molotov Cocktails at two schools in Hakkari’s Yüksekova district.

The school buildings in the Dize and Yeşildere neigborhoods of Yüksekova were badly damaged in the attacks.

An investigation has been launched into the incident.

Tension has escalated in the district after officials closed a school for the second time, after a sealing wire that had been placed on its door by the authorities was removed by locals and members of the Democratic Regions Party (DBP). The school was closed upon a decision from the local governor’s office, on the grounds that it had not received permission from the ministry to operate as a school.