Turkey Deports Foreign Peace Activists

[kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu]

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.etext.org>
Subject: Turkey Deports Foreign Peace Activists

Turkey Deports Foreign Peace Activists 

     ISTANBUL, Sept 5 (Reuter) - Turkish police began on Friday
to deport 15 foreign peace activists detained for organizing an
unauthorized news conference, security officials said. 
     "Three German citizens were expelled this morning. The other
12 will be deported later in the day," a police officer told
Reuters.
     The activists were detained on Wednesday after security
forces broke up the impromptu news conference at an Istanbul
hotel about ways to find a peaceful end to Turkey's Kurdish
conflict.
     They came to Turkey to campaign for a negotiated end to 13
years of conflict between security forces and the Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) rebel group. More than 26,000 people have
died in the fighting.
     Police officials said earlier that the news conference was
forbidden under a law which bars demonstrations in Turkey by
foreigners who have not obtained prior permission.
     The activists were remanded in police custody following an
Istanbul court's rule on Thursday not to drop charges against the
group.
     The mostly German group was part of an aborted
trans-European "peace train", organized by a pro-Kurdish group in
Germany, which was prevented by police from demonstrating in the
southeastern city of Diyarbakir earlier this week.
     Turkey suspects them of sympathy with the PKK, which is
fighting for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast. Some of
the detainees were asked by the court prosecutor if they had any
links with the rebels.

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