Turkish Police Beat Human Rights Ac

[kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu]

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Turkish Police Beat Human Rights Activists In Southeast

Turkish Police Beat Human Rights Activists In Southeast 

LICE, Turkey, Dec 30 (Reuter) - Police kicked an punched three members
of a Turkish human rights group at a protest meeting southeastern Turkey
on Monday, witnesses said. 

A group of about 40 activists, lawyers and politicians had travelled to
Lice from the provincial capital Diyarbakir to investigate charges that
around 100 men had been forced to join the anti-rebel "village
guard" militia. 

Police in Lice, 80 km (50 miles) north of Diyarbakir, accused the
members of the Diyarbakir Democracy Platform of supporting the rebel
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and not caring about police deaths, the
witnesses said. 

They then kicked and punched three members of the group, they added. 

The Human Rights Association (IHD) said last week that gendarmerie
troops had threatened to raze the town and kill its inhabitants if 100
people did not become village guards. 

The group said 110 people were then detained for two days, then sent
home with guns as members of the militia. 

When the activists arrived at Lice, a crowd of about 150 people, mostly
women and children, gathered in the town square chanting "We don't want
village guards, let our children go."

Before the beatings, a local government official addressed the crowd,
the witnesses said. 

"If anyone doesn't want to be a village guard, he should come and leave
his weapon and he will be free to go," Captain Haci Irbasli said. No one
came forward. 

IHD director Eren Keskin said after returning to Diyarbakir from Lice:
"No one should be forced to become a vilage guard, we want peace and we
don't want the death of anyone."

More than 21,000 people have been killed in the 12-year-old conflict
between the security forces and the PKK who are fighting for autonomy or
independence in the mainly Kurdish southeast. 

More than 70,000 mainly Kurdish village guards are enrolled to help the
government in the fight against the PKK.