Turkish authorities have detained 311 people suspected of disseminating “terror propaganda” over Ankara’s offensive against a Kurdish militia in Syria, the Turkish Ministry of the Interior said yesterday.
The suspects have been taken into custody since the operation against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia began on Jan. 20. Detainees have included politicians, journalists and activists.
Ankara views the YPG as a “terrorist” offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.
The PKK is blacklisted as a terror organization by Ankara and its Western allies.
The operation, supporting Syrian rebels with Turkish ground troops and airstrikes, seeks to eliminate the YPG from its western enclave of Afrin in Syria close to the Turkish border.
Although the ministry did not give details, police raids have taken place across the country, from Izmir on the Aegean Sea to Igdir and Van in the east.
Over the weekend, Turkish media reported that 170 artists had written an open letter to lawmakers from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party calling for an immediate end to Turkey’s incursion.
Last week the Turkish Medical Association denounced the cross-border operation, saying “No to war, peace immediately.”
Erdogan on Sunday accused the union of treason.
“Believe me, they are not intellectuals at all, they are a gang of slaves. They are the servants of imperialism,” he told AK Party members in Amasya Province.
Rights groups have expressed renewed concerns over freedom of expression in Turkey. Human Rights Watch last week criticized Ankara’s “intolerance of criticism.”
Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin has urged the public and media to be careful of “lying, fake, distortive and provocative news, images and gossip.”
Local officials of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) have also been detained while the party has criticized the offensive calling it an “invasion.”
“[The HDP] invites the international community to take immediate action to stop it,” the party said yesterday in a letter addressed to the UN and the EU.
An HDP official said that 209 of its members had been detained over allegations of “terror propaganda” and “inciting people to hatred and hostility” since the offensive was launched.
Turkey on Sunday seized a strategic outpost from Kurdish militia in Syria.
After several days of poor visibility because of heavy rain and fog, Turkish warplanes and artillery took advantage of the clear skies and seized Mount Barsaya near the Kurdish town of Afrin in Syria, the military said.
The air and artillery strikes on Sunday were even fiercer than the preceding days, a correspondent on the Syrian-Turkish border said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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