Turkey: Activists Ordered Held
By SEBNEM ARSU
Published: November 1, 2011
An Istanbul court on Tuesday ordered the detention of more than 20 pro-Kurdish political activists, including a prominent political science professor and a leading human rights activist, on terrorism-related charges. The move was criticized by a pro-Kurdish political party and hundreds of intellectuals who issued a joint statement calling the arrests “a heavy blow against the efforts to achieve real democracy within equality, peace, social justice, as well as academic and political freedoms.” The suspects denied that they were members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K. The arrests come as a major military offensive in pursuit of Kurdish militants based in Iraq continues. The government has been debating constitutional changes to help the Kurds.
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