Elections/Kurdes : émeute à Diayarbakir. Un mort – 20 avril 2011

Kurdish protester killed in Turkey clash

aljazeera.net

20 Apr 2011

Demonstrator killed after police open fire to disperse rally amid anger over legal hurdles for election candidates.

One person has been killed in clashes between Kurdish demonstrators and police in southeast Turkey after prominent Kurdish politicians were barred from running upcoming elections.

Witnesses said the police fired on protesters on Wednesday near the regional capital of Diyarbakir.

A statement from Demirtas Selahattin, a senior Kurdish politician, said that a young man was killed by a « police bullet » and witnesses said security forces fired first plastic bullets and then live rounds against the protesters.

Selahattin, who leads Turkey’s main Kurdish political movement, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), had been due to meet Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s president, on Wednesday in an effort to ease tensions over the barred candidates.

But following the violence he cancelled the meeting.

« I have informed (the president) that I cannot go to Ankara in the current circumstances, » he told Anatolia in Diyarbakir.

The governor of Diyarbakir said that police had been responding to an « intensive » hail of petrol bombs, firecrackers and stones from a crowd of about 800 people. Read more…