Far Right Storms a Kurdish Solidarity Night

Far right nationalists storm a Kurdish Festival. Police could not disperse the crowd. One dies. DTP deputy accuses the authorities.

Erhan Üstündağ

Far right nationalists, mostly young men, stormed the solidarity night festival organized by the Democratic Society Party (DTP) in Sakarya, a province near Istanbul. 65 year-old Ebubekir Kalkan, who was one of the nearly 1500 people besieged by the angry mob, died following a heart attack.

İbrahim Binici, a member of the parliament from DTP representing Şanlıurfa, who was among those in the solidarity night, told Bianet that the Governorship and the Police Department of Sakarya did not take the necessary measures and the ambulance they called for Mr. Kalkan arrived very late.

Semih Gökdemir, the branch president of The Human Rights Association (İHD) also agreed that DTP people were harassed and the police did not take the necessary precautions

Attacks went on

Binici stated that at 18:30, right when the festivity was to begin, a group of people from Alperen Ocakları, as was found out later, gathered in front of Funda Wedding Saloon with Turkish flags in their hands. Although the DTP people contacted the Governor Hüseyin Atak for precautionary measures, these measures did not go beyond setting up barricades in front of the saloon to stop the far right nationalist crowd, who were throwing stones at the saloon while shouting slogans against DTP and PKK. “Despite our demands the group was not dispersed. There could have been more losses” said Binici.

Around 01:00 in the morning people could leave the saloon, but the vehicles of those who were trying to get to their homes were attacked.

According to Fırat News Agency, the car that had the artists from the Mesopotamian Culture Center (MKM) who participated in the night had its share of stones as well, with two people getting injured. The DTP building was attacked, too. The police did not interfere in the attacks.

Governor Atak would not comment.

It was not the first attack

In March 2007, a bomb exploded in the DTP provincial building in Sakarya, causing material damage.

A crowd of people attacked and tried to lynch two youths for wearing t-shirts with the picture of Ahmet Kaya on them, a famous Kurdish poet and singer, deceased in 2000. During the same period, two seasonal workers were nearly lynched as well. (EÜ/GG)