Turkey: leading human rights campaigner gunned down

[ozgurluk at xs4all.nl]

ANKARA, May 12 (Reuters) - Turkey's leading human rights campaigner,
Akin Birdal, was gunned down by two unidentified attackers in his
Ankara office on Tuesday, rights officials said.

Birdal, head of the Human Rights Association (IHD), was hit in the
chest and leg by six bullets and was in a critical condition at a
local hospital, the chief doctor there said.

Birdal has been an outspoken critic of Turkey's shaky human rights
record and has frequently accused the state of conducting a ``dirty
war'' against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas.

``Two people shot him numerous times. His condition is critical... The
assailants fled the scene afterwards,'' a spokeswoman for the
association told Reuters.

NTV television channel carried pictures of Birdal lying on the floor
of his office, his white shirt and the floor soaked in blood.

Rights lawyer Aydin Erdogan blamed the shooting on a series of media
reports suggesting Birdal had links to the Kurdish separatists.

``Birdal was portrayed as a target before the whole world in recent
days. It was an invitation to murder,'' he told reporters at the
hospital.

A close friend and colleague said Birdal and his family had received
telephone death threats in the last two months.

``This is a warning to the people of this country who oppose the
official state policy on sensitive subjects such as the Kurdish
question,'' Human Rights Foundation chairman Yavuz Onen told Reuters.

``This attack was aimed at silencing dissidents.''

A heavy police presence was set up outside the association's
headquarters, in central Ankara.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and police said
their investigation was continuing.

Turkey has seen a wave of violence involving extreme rightist and
leftist groups since a militants clashes with police at a May Day
rally in Istanbul.

Ultra-nationalist Grey Wolf militants have been blamed for the killing
of a Kurdish political party member and a university student since
then.

Veteran activist Birdal was recently accused in the media of having
taken orders from PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. The accusations followed
alleged confessions by guerrilla commander, Semdin Sakik, captured by
Turkish forces in northern Iraq.

Outside the hospital, where a team of doctors were closing a large
wound in Birdal's chest and setting broken bones in his legs, a crowd
of around 50 people protested over the attack.

``The state will pay the price for this murder,'' they chanted.

Turkey's human rights record has often come under fire from Western
countries and was one of the factors cited by the European Union for
excluding the country from a list on potential EU candidates last
December.

Birdal faces at least 20 criminal cases on a variety of charges from
aiding Kurdish rebels to provoking hatred. All are related to his
criticism of Turkey's human rights record and treatment of its Kurdish
minority.

He said last month he faced so many charges he could no longer be sure
of their precise number. Turkey tolerates little dissent in its fight
with the Kurdish rebels.

Police used force to break up an IHD-supported protest in Istanbul at
the weekend by mothers of those missing in the 13-year conflict with
the guerrillas.


-- 
Press Agency Ozgurluk
For justice, democracy and human rights in Turkey and Kurdistan!
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