Why Kurds in southeast Turkey are not taking to the streets
For the first time in 36 years, Diyarbakir has a government-appointed trustee to run its municipality — why was there not the expected popular reaction to the arrests of the city's elected co-mayors?
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — Candidates who subscribed to the Kurdistan Workers Party's (PKK) politics were elected as mayors for the first time in the 1999 local elections.
In that landmark election, the Peoples' Democracy Party (HADEP) won 37 municipalities including metropolitan Diyarbakir. Feridun Celik was the first pro-PKK mayor of the city. One day in February 2000, less than a year after the elections, Celik was stopped by police. He was detained together with the mayors of Siirt and Bingol on charges of assisting the PKK. The detention of HADEP mayors triggered instant tension in the region. Thousands of people assembled in front of the municipality and protested for days on end despite occasional police intervention. The mayors were released a few days later to be tried without detention.
