Turkey: Police detain around 100 HADEP hunger strikers

[ozgurluk at xs4all.nl]

8 December, 1998,

Police detain around 100 HADEP hunger strikers 

Ankara - TDN with wire dispatches 

Police in Istanbul rounded up around 100 members of the pro-Kurdish
People's Democracy Party (HADEP) who had begun a three-day hunger
strike across Turkey in protest of a police crackdown on the party
last month.  &127; The strikers were taking part in a nationwide
protest by the HADEP to denounce police raids on party buildings and
the arrest of their leader, Murat Bozlak, according to party official
Mehmet Nuri Gunes.

Police were keeping HADEP buildings in the city under close
observation, according to a report by the Anatolia news agency, which
did not say on what charges the hunger strikers had been detained.

The protestors were carried off by police during hunger strikes in
Istanbul, the northwestern city of Tekirdag and in three southeastern
cities, Gunes said.

Police have been tough on the party since the detention in Rome last
month of outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah
Ocalan.  Thousands of HADEP members protesting Turkish demands for
Ocalan's extradition were taken into custody in the past few
weeks. Most were later released, but around 300 of them, including
Bozlak, have been formally arrested on charges of separatist
propaganda.

-- 
Press Agency Ozgurluk
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