The city of Diyarbakir (AMED) is under attack again from Turkish forces. The residents experiencing the fifth curfew in the last three months have had enough of unnecessary assaults from the Turkish forces. Similar attacks have destroyed other Kurdish towns as well and have exacted a huge human toll from the residents.

Turkish police started their assault on Diyarbakir, a large Kurdish town in Southeast Turkey early in the morning yesterday with the declaration of curfew at 5:00AM in the morning. Around six neighborhoods in the Sur district are affected by the military style restriction. No end time has been published for the curfew which leaves the people stranded with no end in sight. Other Kurdish towns where people were forced to stay in house for days on end had seen violence when residents left their homes to find food or water and were shot by the Turkish forces.

As soon as the curfew was declared by the Turkish government the police attacks started. Gun shots could be heard from the neighborhood of Balikcilarbasi where the Diyarbakir Bar Association’s head lawyer was murdered by the police only few days ago. Nihat Elci, the chief human rights lawyer representing many Kurds who had been murdered, or attacked by the Turkish police had just ended his press conference when he was murdered with a single bullet to the back of his head by police fire.

Responding to the police assaults against their neighborhood, people of Sur started an “action of sound,” banging pots and pans as a means of protest.

Although no reliable information was available as of this writing, there are reports that 4 people have been shot by the cops. A person taking a wounded resident to the hospital has been arrested by the police. A regular procedure of the Turkish police is to keep the wounded from reaching a hospital, trying to kill them by loss of blood as a punishment. There are videos of police kicking and hitting the stretchers of the wounded who were able to make it to the hospital. Many ambulances and drivers have been targeted by the police as they tried to transport the hurt to a hospital. This method may have been taught to the Turkish police by the Israeli officials who train the Turkish police. Many Palestinian ambulance drivers targeted by Israeli sharp shooters have lost their lives trying to take the wounded Palestinians to safety. Similarities between Israeli and Turkish police tactics to shoot the ambulance drivers are striking.

To protest the curfew, progressive youth organization Dem-Genc staged a passive sit-in protest. Pro-Kurdish and progressive electoral parties HDP and DBP have called for massive action in the city center. However, when the residents started to gather for the protest “unknown” assailants started firing at the crowd. News agency ANF claimed the police had started firing. Daily Evrensel reported that a women had been killed by the police when, the police claimed, the women attacked them. Evrensel reported that the woman opened fire on the police at a checkpoint. The woman police officer was unhurt, however the attacker was killed on the spot.

On a separate incident nearby, a 13 or 14 year old child was killed when the Turkish police gunned him down. The pictures of the body of the child were shared by the police on the internet.

DBP and HDP party representatives gave a speech to the protesters and both complained that the Turkish police or authorities refused to give information on how many residents had been killed or wounded by the cops.

HDP representative from HDP said the events in Diyarbakir were not a police operation, but rather, what was happening was a civil war in the midst of a large city. The representative also added, “No government should declare war on its citizens and attack them with heavy artillery.”

Sendika.Org News / Mehmet Bayram