Protests In Turkey After Pro-Kurdish Lawyer Killed In Shootout

A senior lawyer and a police officer have died after gunfire erupted in Turkey’s southeastern province of Diyarbakir on Saturday.

Two other policemen died in the firefight, and a number of journalists were wounded, Al Jazeera reported. “We were never able to say goodbye to them with our minds at ease thinking those responsible will be caught”.

There were emotional scenes at the funeral, where some of Elci’s relatives were clearly distressed.

Security sources have pinned the attack on the terrorist organization PKK. Police used water cannons and tear gas in an effort to disperse protesters.

“The moment the statement ended, the crowd was sprayed with bullets”, a local official from the pro-Kurdish HDP party, Omer Tastan, told Reuters.

He said authorities believe that Elci was caught in the crossfire, but were not ruling out “the possibility that a third party directly targeted him”.

Turkey has become embroiled in a renewed conflict with Kurdish militants following this summer’s breakdown of a two-year-old cease-fire and amid a freeze on peace talks.

TURKEY OUT Tahir Elci, the head of Diyarbakir Bar Affiliation, speaks to the media shortly before being killed in Diyarbakir, Turkey, Sat., Nov. 28, 2015.

“A person ran towards Elci fired and then started to run away” Dogan news agency’s reporter Felat Bozarslan recalls.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed the reports of Elci’s death Saturday and said the attack showed that Turkey was right to pursue its fight against terrorism.

On October 19, an Istanbul court issued a warrant for Elci on charges of “propaganda for a terror organization” after the lawyer said on a CNN Turk program, “PKK is not a terrorist organization….”

The killing is the latest sign of the precarious security situation in Turkey’s southeast after peace talks collapsed between the government and the PKK, which seeks autonomy for the country’s ethnic Kurds.

A government official said four inspectors have been assigned to investigate the case, adding that the government was “determined to shed light” on the attack.

A curfew had been called in the Sur district of Diyarbakir where the killing took place and security forces conducted operations to drive back the youth wing of the PKK.