News / Turkey

Gunmen shoot dead top Kurdish lawyer in southeast Turkey

Saturday, 28 November 2015 2:08 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 28 November 2015 6:23 PM ]

Tahir Elci, a Kurdish lawyer and the president of the Bar Association of Turkey’s Diyarbakir (C), speaks just moments before he was shot dead on November 28, 2015 in Diyarbakir. (AFP photo)

Gunmen have opened fire on a gathering in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish province of Diyarbakir, killing a senior Kurdish lawyer.

The attack was carried out on Saturday in Sur district, when Tahir Elci, the president of the Bar Association in Diyarbakir, along with 40 other activists, were giving a press statement.

Shortly after the shooting police were engaged in clashes with the assailants.

Medical sources later said that Elci sustained gunshot wounds to his head and died.

“The moment the statement ended, the crowd was sprayed with bullets,” said Omer Tastan, a local official from the pro-Kurdish HDP party, adding, “A single bullet struck Elci in the head.”

Witnesses also said the clashes left three policemen and an unknown number of journalists injured.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared in a speech shortly after the incident that a policeman also lost his life.

Tahir Elci, the head of Diyarbakir Bar Association (C), is applauded by his colleagues as he leaves from his office in Diyarbakir, Turkey, October 20, 2015. (Reuters photo)

The office of Diyarbakir governor announced a curfew in the area after the incident.

Elci had faced harsh criticism for saying that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is not a terrorist group on CNN Turk TV. He was detained in October for alleged “terrorist propaganda” pending trial.

Ankara has been engaged in a large-scale military campaign against the PKK in its southern border region in the recent past. The Turkish military has been also conducting offensives against the positions of the PKK in northern Iraq.

The operations began in the wake of a deadly July 20 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc, an ethnically Kurdish town located close to border with Syria. Over 30 people died in the Suruc attack, which the Turkish government blamed on Takfiri Daesh terrorists.

After the bombing in Suruc, the PKK militants, who accuse the government in Ankara of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of supposed reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces, in turn prompting the Turkish military operations.

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