Turks March Against Shooting of Human Rights Chief

[ozgurluk at xs4all.nl]

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       TURKS MARCH AGAINST SHOOTING OF HUMAN RIGHTS CHIEF
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     09:38 a.m. May 17, 1998 Eastern
 
     ANKARA, May 17 (Reuters) - Thousands of Turks marched on
Sunday under the watchful gaze of riot police to protest over the
shooting last week of the country's leading human rights
campaigner.
   
     In Ankara, squads of police wearing plastic body armour
waited along the route of over a thousand marchers toward the
small hospital where Akin Birdal, head of the Human Rights
Association (IHD) is receiving treatment.
   
     Birdal was shot six times in the chest and leg by two gunmen
in his Ankara office on Tuesday.
   
     ``Akin's improvement is continuing. All we have to do now is
wait,'' IHD official Tayfun Gorgun told the crowd which broke up
after flowers had been laid outside the hospital.
   
     The marchers' progress through the city had been punctuated
with chants of anti-fascist slogans and shouts of, ``Don't be
silent. If you are silent, your turn will come.''
   
     Over a thousand demonstrators gathered in front of the IHD's
headquarters in central Istanbul before dispersing. Several
hundred police and water cannon were stationed in a nearby
square.
   
     In Diyarbakir, regional capital of the mainly Kurdish
southeast, police broke up a similar demonstration organised by
Turkey's largest Kurdish party, making around ten arrests.
   
     Justice Minister Oltan Sungurlu said the search for Birdal's
attackers would end shortly.
   
     ``Those who carried out the armed attack on IHD chairman
Birdal will be caught soon,'' Anatolian news agency quoted him as
saying.
   
     The agency also said the main opposition Islamist Virtue
Party had submitted a motion to parliament calling for the
assembly to set up an investigation into the case.
   
     Birdal has been an outspoken critic of Turkey's shaky human
rights record and frequently accused the state of conducting a
``dirty war'' against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels in the
southeast. More than 28,000 people have been killed in the
13-year conflict.
   
     The veteran activist had been receiving death threats after
purported accusations by captured PKK defector Semdin Sakik were
leaked to the press linking Birdal to the guerrilla group.
   
     Rights groups blamed the shooting on these reports and
linked the assassination attempt to a security scandal which
exposed state ties to rightist death squads. IHD officials deny
any connection to the PKK.
   
     Turkey's human rights record has often come under fire from
the West and was one of the factors cited by the European Union
for excluding the country from a list of potential EU candidates
last December.
 
     Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
 
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