Angry Kurds battled Turkish police with rocks and firebombs on Saturday to protest a decision by the country’s top court to shut down a pro-Kurdish political party on charges of ties to militants.
The party’s lawmakers said they would boycott parliament.
The party was banned on Friday, a day after the main Kurdish rebel group claimed responsibility for killing seven Turkish soldiers in an ambush in central Turkey, an attack that outraged the country.
The ban and ensuing violence deepened uncertainty over efforts to end a conflict between the state and its largest ethnic minority.
A crowd pelted an armored police bus with stones as firebombs hit two other armored vehicles, briefly engulfing them in fire in the town of Yuksekova, close to the borders with Iraq and Iran, Dogan news agency video showed.
Protesters blocked streets with barricades and burning tires. Police used water canons to mark the protesters with brightly colored water.
In neighboring Hakkari city, a mob attempted to lynch two police officers but were prevented by local Kurdish politicians, the state-run Anatolia news agency said.
Police detained about a dozen protesters, the area’s governor said.
Protests took place elsewhere in the region and the western cities of Ankara and Izmir, Anatolia said.
Democratic Society Party chairman Ahmet Turk said the remaining 19-seat group had withdrawn and would not attend sessions of the 550-seat assembly.
The party had 21 seats but the court on Friday expelled Turk and another legislator from the assembly.
The political turmoil has jeopardized a government project to reconcile with minority Kurds in the hopes of ending the fight with Kurdish rebels who have been labeled terrorists by the West. The party has resisted calls from Turkish politicians to label the guerrillas as such.
The EU has expressed concern over the ban, saying in a statement that “while strongly denouncing violence and terrorism, the presidency recalls that the dissolution of political parties is an exceptional measure that should be used with utmost restraint.”
The court said in its ruling that the party had ties to the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has fought for autonomy from the Turkish state since 1984.
The court also barred Turk and legislator Aysel Tugluk from joining any political party for five years along with 35 other party members, including Leyla Zana, a prominent Kurd who served a decade in prison on charges of separatism.
“What else can the court do when there are party administrators who declare the terrorist organization to be their reason of existence,” the Anatolia news agency quoted Turkish President Abdullah Gul as saying during a visit to Montenegro.
The court has shut down several Kurdish party on similar charges in the past.
The predecessor of the Democratic Society Party had dissolved itself in 2005.
The party is the 27th to be shut down in Turkey since 1968.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
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