Two Dead as Police Prevents Öcalan Birthday Celebrations

Around 5,000 people tried to visit the village of Abdullah Öcalan’s birth on his sixtieth birthday on Saturday (4 April). In the crowd, there were also MPs of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), Ayla Akat Ata, Gülten Kışanak, and İbrahim Binici, as well as DTP mayors.

They wanted to go to the Ömerli village in the Halfeti district of Şanlıurfa, southeast Turkey, the place were imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was born.

Police prevented crowd from going to village

The police prevented the crowd by blocking the road around 20 kilometres before the village. When people tried to walk on, they were stopped. Around 500 people then separated from the crowd, took to the hills and threw stones and Molotov cocktails at the security forces, police and soldiers replied with pressurised water guns and tear gas.

A group which was waiting in the security area and which included MP Akat, was held back with pressurised water from a police tank when it wanted to walk on.

As the events were going on, DTP MPs met with governor Yusuf Yavaşçan and gendarmerie regional commander General Ata Kalkan. Following the meeting, Binici made an announcement in Kurdish and Turkish, calling off the protests, which had lasted for 2.5 hours.

The protesters returned to the vehicles and left the area, followed by police.

Two dead, seven treated

Mustafa Dağ (27) and Mahsun Karaoğlan (21) were taken to hospital during the riots, but died there. Seven other people were taken to hospital for treatment.

According to Özgür Radio, Dağ’s autopsy has revealed that he was shot, but Karaoğlan’s cause of death is yet to be established.

A funeral for Karaoğlan was held in the Yayvantepe village in the Ergani district of Diyarbakır. According to the Fırat News Agency, the funeral was attended by more than 10,000 people, including DTP MPs Selahattin Demirtaş, Gülten Kışanak and Aysel Tuğluk, Greater Diyarbakır mayor Osman Baydemir, DTP province chair Ali Şimşek, artists from the Mesopotamia Culture Centre (MKM) and mayors.

"A clear message"

Demirtaş spoke at the funeral, saying, “The security forces carried out the orders given to them. We will give them a clearer message than they gave us: If you develop murderous policies, we will resist death. This people will resist until its will, manifested on 29 March (in the local elections), is accepted and until its own leadership is liberated. Our message to them is clear.”

The crowd shouted slogans such as “Murderer Erdoğan,” “Martyrs don’t die,” “The PKK are the people and the people are here.” (BÇ/AG)