Istanbul police attack people protesting Kurd lawyer killing

Turkish police have attacked protesters in Istanbul who were furious at the killing of prominent Kurdish lawyer and rights activist Tahir Elci.

Security forces fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse hundreds of people demonstrating in the city on Saturday, chanting, “Shoulder to shoulder against fascism,” and, “Tahir Elci is immortal.”

Similar protests were reported in other cities across the country, including in the city of Diyarbakir.

The lawyer was shot dead by gunmen earlier in the day in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish province of Diyarbakir, where he was giving a press statement.

According to witnesses, Elci was killed by a single bullet while a policeman was also killed in an exchange of fire that followed.

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

Dogan News Agency reported that two police officers sustained injuries when an investigative team went to visit the site of the attack and came under fire.

The HDP denounced Elci’s murder as a “planned assassination” and called for a protest move. However, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said it is still unclear whether the lawyer was caught in crossfire or assassinated.

“In the place left by Tahir Elci, thousands more Tahir Elcis will carry on the work in the struggle for law and justice,” the party said in a statement, accusing the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its media of targeting the lawyer.

Turkish officials insist that the rights activist was not the target of the attack as Interior Minister Efkan Ala said at a news conference where Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag was present that a gunfight broke out after someone opened fire at police from an unidentified car.

“Tahir Elci was caught up in fire between police and terrorists,” he added, without saying whether any arrest was made.

A curfew has been declared in the area after the incident and a probe has been launched into the incident.

Elci had been harshly criticized 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.

Turkey has been engaged in large-scale military operations against the PKK across the mainly Kurdish southeastern and eastern regions of Turkey, and in northern Iraq, since a two-year ceasefire broke down in July.

The operations began in the wake of a deadly bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc, an ethnically Kurdish town located close to the border with Syria, on July 20, killing over 30 people.

The Turkish security forces and the PKK have since been engaged in a series of tit-for-tat attacks.

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