Leyla Zana: "Erdogan is Building an Empire of Fear!"

If it was not already clear, it is becoming clearer by the day that the policy of AKP has always been to completely destroy the Kurdish Movement who have fought for Kurdish rights for the last 30 years or so in Turkey.

Already, the jails have been filling up daily with houses and offices being raided daily for over one year now as Turkey's 'Internment of the Kurds' policy has progressed with hardly a whisper from the international community!

I wonder if police in France, UK or Germany had gone from door to door of the political opposition arresting and detaining them would it appear as a news item?

This morning in Ankara, Istanbul, Mersin, Batman, Diyarbakir, Siirt, Van, Urfa, Adana, Agri, Mardin, Izmir and other places as yet to be established Turkish police are breaking into houses, offices and cultural centres of Kurdish people who have campaigned for years for Kurdish rights in Turkey! Read latest Reuters report here.

So far, the have been 123 addresses searched including houses of Kurdish MPs, mayors, buildings of municipalities, Kurdish cultural centres and BDP party bureaus in 17 cities and at least 33 people taken into detention although some reports put this at nearer 40!

Leyla Zana's house has apparently been targeted, Selim Sadik, Mayor of Siirt, who was jailed with Leyla Zana in the 90's has also had his house raided and has been detained,

New reports are coming in all the time!

DTK Co Chair, Aysel Tugluk said of the operations:

“Everyone who is living for her/his honor, identity and social existence became a target for the ruling AKP government. Kurds by now have nothing to lose. This latest police operation has targeted the whole of the Kurdish struggle. It aims to debarred Kurds from their realm of freedom established by continuing repression and harassment,”

Coming after a year of daily internment of Kurdish political activists and the deliberate bombing and killing of 35 Kurdish civilians in Sirnak, the message could not be any clearer!

AKP want to destroy the gains made by Kurdish political activists over the last 30 years and replace them with their own 'puppet' in the guise of people like Kemal Burkay and their own type of compliant Kurds from AKP and elsewhere.

This policy is creating and laying the foundations for another 50 year war with the Kurds and many in Turkey, Kurdistan and elsewhere will be waiting and wondering as the democratic road is well and truly locked down will the Kurdish armed struggle again begin?

This internment of the Kurds, is a declaration of war against the Kurdish movement and nobody should be surprised if the Kurds, no longer able to pursue democratic struggle look to other forms of struggle!