Police clashed with pro-Kurdish demonstrators denouncing new prison conditions for rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan on Sunday. A 23-year-old university student died in hospital following the clashes, news reports said.
Protesters in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir hurled stones and fireworks at police and at the local headquarters of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party.
The state-run Anatolia news agency said police responded with pepper gas to disperse the crowds.
The student, Aydin Erdem, died of gunshot wounds in hospital, CNN-Turk and other reports said, but there were no immediate details on how he got shot.
Police also broke up other pro-Kurdish protests in Istanbul and in at least three other cities in the predominantly Kurdish southeast, NTV television said.
At least one police officer was injured, Anatolia said.
Turkey built a new maximum security prison on Ocalan’s prison island and transferred inmates there to end his isolation.
Ocalan has complained about conditions at his new cell, triggering protests by his supporters. The rebel leader said in a statement released by his lawyers last month that his cell was smaller and that he had difficulties breathing.
Turkey denies prison conditions are worse and has invited European anti-torture inspectors to visit his new prison cell.
Turkey built the new prison after the Council of Europe, demanded that Turkey end Ocalan’s solitude, saying his mental state was deteriorating after spending years as the sole inmate of Imrali island, off Istanbul.
Ocalan, 60, is serving a life sentence for leading the PKK’s campaign for autonomy that has led to tens of thousands of deaths since 1984.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in