Rights Activists React as Children Crowd Prisons

At least 107 children have been taken under custody during protests regarding the commemoration of PKK's leader Abdullah Ocalan's arrest on February 15th, 1999. Local papers report a baby being hurt in a police raid to a house of suspected participants and a child blinded when a police's gas bomb hit him on the eye.

In Yüksekova, a child is allegedly hospitalized when a police vehicle runs over him. Five children were taken under custody and released after questioning.

16 children were taken under custody in Nusaybin, Mardin; two among them were arrested and sent to prison. In Diyarbakır, 16 children are reported still under police custody. 18 children in Adana and 20 children in Batman are under custody. Allegations involve police checking bypassing children's hands to see "if they have marks to prove they throve stones or not." 

On the other hand, rights activists and family members of the accused children will meet MP's in parliament. They will demand amendments to the law, in order to end children tried with terror charges.

An Initiative for Justice for Children, including rights activists from Diyarbakır, Ankara and Istanbul will initiate a campaign to that respect. More than a thousand people have signed an online petition, which can be reached at Çocuklara Adalet.

Responding a motion by DTP MP Selahattin Demirtas, Minister of Justice Mehmet Ali Sahin revealed that 724 children have been accused by terror charges in 2006 and 2007, as defined at the Counter Terrorism Law.    

319 among those were tried in Diyarbakır courts, focus of Kurdish unrest in Southeastern Turkey.

Another 422 children were tried with the Article 220 of the Penal Code during the same period, which penalizes "organizing to commit crime." Yet another 413 children were accused of "membership to armed organizations", as defined in Article 314 of the Penal Code.

In 2006, the government had introduced a change in the Counter Terror Law, which enabled courts to try children aged between 15 and 18 as adults. In the same year, the Court of Cassation made a leading ruling, deeming participation in an protest as legal proof for "membership to the organization" calling for the protest. As a result, hundreds of children are tried with membership to the PKK, while activists condemn the situation as being against international standards. (EÜ/AGÜ)