Turkey expands crackdown on pro-Kurdish activists with dozens of raids
The prospect for promises of sweeping reform looked bleak in the wake of more than 70 arrests that targeted politicians, doctors, lawyers, journalists and civil society activists.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s pledges for sweeping reforms looked shakier Friday, as at least 70 people accused of links to a Kurdish militant group were arrested in raids across the country. They included politicians, doctors, lawyers, journalists and civil society activists who were picked up in dawn raids in connection with an ongoing investigation launched against the Democratic Society Congress (DTK). The group advocates greater rights for Turkey’s long suppressed Kurds.
Warrants were issued by the Diyarbakir prosecutor’s office for 101 suspects whose names were seen in documents seized from DTK offices, “that’s the sum of the evidence against them,” said Cihan Aydin, the president of the Diyarbakir Bar Association, in a statement.
“Yesterday talk of reform, today a new crackdown on Kurds,” tweeted Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey director for Human Rights Watch.
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) joined in the calls for the immediate release of all the detainees. They include 26 lawyers. “Lawyers are often subject to bogus charges in Turkey to curb their work, including in defense of human rights and the exercise of their freedom of expression,” said Roisin Pillay, director of the ICJ’s Europe and Central Asia Program.
