Turkey Orders Dozens of Arrests, Including Mayor

Date: 25 September 2020 - 22:16

News ID: ۸۳۱۶۸

ANKARA (Dispatches) – Authorities in Turkey have issued arrest warrants for 82 people, including an opposition party mayor, over protests six years ago.
The warrants relate to October 2014 protests in Turkey sparked after the Daesh terrorist group occupied the Syrian town of Kobane.
Protesters flooded streets in Turkey’s southeast in early October 2014, accusing the Turkish army of standing by as Daesh besieged Kobani, just across the Syrian border.
Ankara accused officials of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) of urging people to take part in the protests across Turkey that left 37 dead. The HDP blamed Turkish police for the violence.
In a statement on Friday, the Ankara chief public prosecutor’s office said police were on the hunt for the suspects in the Turkish capital and six other provinces.
"The Ankara Prosecutor’s Terror Crimes Investigation Bureau has launched an investigation on the PKK terrorist organization and its so-called executives, as well as certain political party executives and members … and, at the current stage, ordered the detention of 82 suspects,” the office said.
The government accuses the HDP of having links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The HDP denies the links.
The prosecutor’s office did not specify what offences the suspects were alleged to have committed.
However, it said crimes committed during the protests included murder, attempted murder, theft, damaging property, looting, burning the Turkish flag and injuring 326 security officials and 435 citizens.
The arrest warrants included the mayor of the northeastern Kars province, Ayhan Bilgen, former MP Sirri Sureyya Onder and HDP party executives, some of whom had already been detained.
The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union, has fought against the state in the southeast since 1984. A ceasefire collapsed in 2015.