MESOP NEWS : New curfews announced in Turkey’s Kurdistan as airstrikes target PKK bases

By Rudaw 7 hours ago – 26 Febr 2017 – DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — At least 10 guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were killed in Turkey’s Kurdish Bitlis province after army helicopters struck a PKK base in the area on Saturday, according to statement by the local governors who also stated that the ongoing curfews had been expanded to include new areas. The office of Bitlis governor also said that two PKK fighters had been arrested in the operation.

The new curfews follow a series of extended curfews in nine villages in the Mardin province two weeks ago. The curfews started on Friday evening in 10 districts in Diyarbakir province and would be open-ended, the Diyarbakir governor’s office said.  The statement said the curfews will cover the districts of Lice, Farqin and Psor due to the “ongoing anti-terror operations in the area.”

Ankara has accelerated its crack down on suspected PKK affiliates in the past month and detained some 800 people in 37 different provinces since last month on charges of terrorism and links to the outlawed Kurdish faction. The wave of mass detentions also included lawmakers of the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) whose entire leadership is now in prison awaiting trials.Human rights organisations have in the past condemned the curfews as “inhuman” and “collective punishment” for local residents who often are cut off from the rest of the country for long periods.

“In particular, Amnesty is focusing on the dramatic and far-reaching abuses in southeastern Turkey where indefinite, round-the-clock curfews and other arbitrary measures have resulted in tremendous hardship,” the Amnesty International stated last year as curfews covered much of the southeastern provinces of the country. “There are some villages, for instance in Nusaibin, which have been under curfew since February 11 and virtually no one can enter or leave the villages due to the curfews,” said Rudaw reporter in Diyarbakir, Sarakn Inja. www.mesop.de