22 killed in protests against ISIL siege of Kurdish town

22 people were killed and dozens injured across Turkey on Tuesday and Wednesday as sympathizers of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) resorted to violent demonstrations in protest of the Turkish government's failure to help prevent the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani from falling to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Due to the widespread violent protests in the mainly Kurdish Southeast of the country and in cities such as İstanbul and İzmir, a curfew was imposed late on Tuesday in six provinces when the protests tuned violent. Protesters clashed not only with the police; rival groups were also in deadly confrontations in cities such as Diyarbakır and Batman.

Ten people in Diyarbakır, five in Mardin, three in Siirt, one in Van, Batman and Adana provinces were killed on Tuesday and Wednesday in the clashes between supporters of the PKK and the Free Cause Party (Hüda-Par), a pro-Kurdish/radical Islamist party. Hüda-Par is ideologically aligned with ISIL, alongside which some young Kurds have been reportedly fighting in Syria.

Another protester, Hakan Bursur, 22, died during protests in Varto, Muş province, when a tear gas canister hit him on the head. Among the casualties, two others were also reportedly killed by tear gas canisters fired by the police.

Late into the night on Tuesday, gunshots were heard in Diyarbakır, and protests also continued on Wednesday in some parts of city despite the curfew, which will be in effect until 06:00 hours on Thursday.

On Wednesday, protesters who set fire to tires on the street clashed with the police in various parts of the city. One protester was injured during the clashes.

Haydar Çelik, chief of police in the town of Tarsus in Mersin province, was wounded by gunfire while he was at the protests on Wednesday.

The police in Diyarbakır failed on Tuesday to stop the violence by the angry protesters, who were spread all over the city. Upon the demand of the governor of Diyarbakır, gendarmerie forces have been posted at certain areas in the city. In İstanbul's Esenyurt district, too, gendarmerie forces were deployed at some spots on Wednesday.

Food, Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Minister Mehdi Eker, a Diyarbakır deputy of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), said at a press conference on Wednesday that 30 protesters have been put under police custody and dozens of injured protesters are being treated in hospitals in Diyarbakır.

Eker, who arrived in Diyarbakır on Tuesday evening, called for calm at the press meeting in the city. Accusing a chaos lobby of provoking people to sabotage a settlement process launched by the government to resolve the country's decades-old Kurdish and terrorism issue, Eker said this lobby group in Diyarbakır has been trying on various occasions to put its plans to create disruption and chaos into practice.

Criticizing the protests for having descended into vandalism, Eker called on parents to keep their children away from the protests for calm to be restored in the city.

Eker's remarks signaled that the PKK may have attacked in Diyarbakır members of Hüda-Par who they saw as sympathizers of ISIL. He said: “You have set fire to the party building, raided the association. […] There was an attack against an association. Following that, the number of attacks increased.”

People took to the streets on Tuesday following reports that ISIL was very near to capturing the town of Kobani defended by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), an affiliate based in Syria of the terrorist PKK. Fighting still continues in the Syrian town, which is situated very near the Turkish border.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP), which is affiliated with the PKK, made a call on Monday for Kurds to take to the streets to show solidarity with the people of Kobani, as the siege around the border town got more intense.

The possibility that YPG militants defending the mainly Kurdish town of Kobani and people still in the town may face a massacre following an imminent capture of the town by ISIL terrorists appears to be one of the reasons why the protests turned so violent.

A statement issued early on Tuesday by the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), a political umbrella organization that includes the terrorist (PKK), also called on people to take to the streets, to hold protests at the Turkish-Syrian border as ISIL closed in on Kobani from three sides of the town.

“All streets should be turned into streets of Kobani. […] As of this moment, millions should pour into the streets, a flood of people should be present at the border,” the statement said.

The HDP's Pervin Buldan, co-chair of the party, also threatened the government in a statement on Tuesday in Adana, saying if Kobani should fall, then the settlement process would also fail.

Following a call for a boycott of classes in universities on Oct. 8 and 9 by some youth organizations affiliated with the pro-Kurdish HDP, protests were organized on Wednesday in universities around the country. In the universities of İstanbul, Boğaziçi and Galatasaray in İstanbul and in the Middle East Technical College and Hacettepe universities in Ankara, students got together in discussion forums.

During the protests, cars, bank branches and state buildings were damaged across the country. Municipality buses were put on fire, shop windows were shattered by mobs angry at both ISIL and the Turkish government, which they accused of not offering help to the YPG militants against ISIL.

Six of those who were killed in Diyarbakır are reportedly sympathizers of Hüda-Par, while Emrah Demir, who was killed during protests in Batman, was claimed over the social media to have been killed by supporters of Hüda-Par, according to the Radikal news portal.

The fight between sympathizers of Hüda-Par and the PKK in the Southeast has also put in danger a settlement process.

Mehmet Hüseyin Yılmaz, a deputy chairman in charge of political and legal issues of Hüda-Par, said on his official Twitter account on Tuesday that six of his sympathizers had been martyred by the PKK during the protests.

Accusing the PKK of attacking members of Hüda-Par all over the Southeast, and of putting thereby an end to the settlement process, Yılmaz said: “The settlement process, which, having been led off its course, paved the way for the PKK to get stronger while eliminating the security of life and property of our people and is also finished for us.”

Demir was accused, in a message posted over a Twitter account through which the Batman branch of Hüda-Par had earlier shared announcements about the party's activities, of being among the mob that attacked the party's building in Batman, a city in the Southeast of the country. The message claimed that Demir was stopped by “heroic members of Hüda-Par.”

The Turkish Hezbollah, affiliated with Hüda-Par, which is also fairly strong among Kurds in the predominantly Kurdish Southeast, encouraged its supporters to protect themselves against attacks in a Twitter message.

“Let our Muslim people and members know that the Hezbollah community will, God willing, do whatever is necessary to protect them,” a message posted after midnight on Monday by an account called Press Office of Hezbollah.

THY cancels flights to Diyarbakır

Turkish Airlines (THY) canceled two flights to and from the southeastern province of Diyarbakır after authorities declared a curfew in the predominantly Kurdish province -- a THY flight from Diyarbakır to İstanbul just after midnight and an İstanbul-Diyarbakır flight early on Wednesday morning.

On Wednesday THY restarted flying to Diyarbakır with a flight that left İstanbul at 16:20.

All educational institutions were closed due to the violent protests in Diyarbakır and Batman.

Efkan Ala, minister of interior, used threatening language towards protesters in a statement to reporters late on Tuesday. Calling on all protesters to go back home, Ala said: “Violence will be doubly returned. [...] Otherwise, results that cannot be estimated might occur.”

The protests were not limited to eastern Turkey. In İstanbul's Bağcılar and Okmeydanı districts, PKK sympathizers burned private vehicles, while protesters in Bağcılar stoned the building of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). There were also protests in Kadıköy, Sultangazi, Beyoğlu, Maltepe, Esenyurt and Gaziosmanpaşa districts of İstanbul on Tuesday.

In protests in various parts of the country on Tuesday, Turkish flags were burned and busts of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic, were destroyed.

Co-chair of the HDP Selahattin Demirtaş criticized those who burned Turkish flags and smashed busts of Atatürk. Calling such acts provocation, he said those people who carry out such kinds of acts are ones who do not want Turks to give support to the settlement process.