Two dead in Kurd demos

Nowruz celebrations deteriorate into third day of clashes with police

A demonstrator gestures during a gathering to celebrate Nowruz, the traditional Kurdish New Year, in Istanbul, yesterday.

DIYARBAKIR (AFP) – A third day of unrest in the Kurdish region of southeast Turkey yesterday left two people dead and two police officers injured, officials and witnesses said yesterday.

Violence erupted when celebrations to mark March 21 – Nowruz, or the Kurdish New Year – degenerated into protests in favor of separatist Kurdish rebels, and the authorities banned gatherings in some cities.

A 20-year-old man died from a bullet wound in Yuksekova town, where riot police clashed with hundreds of protesters who took to the streets in defiance of the ban, hospital sources said. Two policemen were meanwhile slightly injured when a bomb, believed to be a small device designed to make loud noise rather than to kill, exploded in the street as the security forces chased protesters, witnesses said.

At least five demonstrators and another policeman were injured, as police fired warning shots into the air and used tear gas and a water cannon on the crowd.

Shouting slogans in favor of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), masked youths hurled stones at the security forces, set barricades and fires in the street and broke shop windows.

Earlier yesterday, a 35-year-old man died in the hospital from a bullet wound he sustained in clashes in the eastern city of Van on Saturday, doctors said.

The local governor’s office confirmed the death, but could not give more details.

Police in Van blamed the unrest on the Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which organized the gathering despite a decision by local authorities to allow the celebrations only on Friday.

Dozens of people, including police officers, have been injured and more than 300 rounded up across Turkey since Friday when the disturbances began after initially peaceful celebrations.

Violence broke yesterday also in the western city of Izmir, home to a large Kurdish migrant community from the southeast, and 20 people were detained, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The DTP provincial chairman in Izmir was detained Saturday after allegedly calling for a “Nowruz rebellion,” along with several other people who were in the procession throwing Molotov cocktails.