Society for Threatened Peoples condemns violent protests: "The rioters are stabbing the oppressed Turkish-Kurdish civilians in the back"

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) vehemently deplores the violent attacks of PKK sympathizers against the German police in Mannheim last Saturday. "The rioters are stabbing the oppressed Turkish-Kurdish civilians in the back. Their irresponsible actions are putting any sympathy for the Kurdish cause at risk – in Germany and all of Europe," said the STP's General Secretary, Tilman Zülch, on Monday. "With these brutal and totalitarian methods, the PKK is going to harm the whole Kurdish democratic movement – which has been fighting for equality, human rights and self-determination for decades."

Once more, the human rights activists urged the Turkish government to show more noticeable effort to try and resolve the Kurdish conflict and secure the fundamental rights of more than 15 million members of this ethnic group in Turkey. Until today, Ankara prefers to oppress the Kurds and to restrict their freedom of expression and freedom of the press. An anti-terrorism law authorizes the law enforcement and the judiciary system to respond to peaceful demonstrations or pro-Kurdish statements with arrests and long prison terms. Even in the predominantly Kurdish areas in the southeast of the country, Kurdish is not being taught in any of the schools. Since 2009, many Kurdish journalists, politicians, human rights activists and opposition members became victims of a wave of arrests. Thousands of members of the Kurdish Democratic Party BDP are in custody, accused of belonging to the PKK or of disparaging Turkishness, without any evidence.

Many of the more than 4,000 young people who were labeled as terrorists and sentenced to long prison terms between 2006 and 2010, are still in prison. They were only 12 to 17 years old at the time of their trial, in which they were accused of taking part in a demonstration, allegedly expressing pro-Kurdish slogans and throwing stones at the police. Children who were released reported about torture and abuse. Often, the young people are left at the mercy of judicial officers or adult inmates.