JINHA

NEWS CENTER –Newroz celebrations outside of Kurdistan continued yesterday, with thousands across the Marmara Sea and Thrace region gathering for celebrations.

The cities and towns of Kocaeli, Bursa, Erenler, Çanakkale, Yalova and Çorlu held colorful celebrations of Newroz yesterday. Union workers; political parties like the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) and Labor Party (EMEP);radical political movements and NGOs; and Kurdish and Turkish citizens celebrated the holiday together, lighting Newroz fires across the northwestern region of the country.

"Öcalan gave a historic announcement yesterday," said YurdusevÖzsekmenler, of the HDPCentral Executive Board, speaking before the crowd of thousands at Kocaeli's Thursday Market field. "Are you going to answer Mr. Öcalan's call, are you going to start negotiations, are you going to send a monitoring committee to İmralı, are you going to start peace and reconciliation committees?"

When Yurdusev noted that, "at this point, we just want to see our leader in these Newroz celebrations with us," the crowd answered with chants of "long live the leader Öcalan."

As crowds dispersed from the Kocaeli celebrations, a group of fascists attacked some of the returning revelers, wounding one. One of the attackers was arrested. In Çorlu, in the Thrace region, frequent police harassment of revelers also cast a shadow over Newroz celebrations.

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) representatives addressed the crowds in a number of the cities, calling attention to the June 7^th elections, when the HDP will be struggling to overcome the high 10% electoral threshold that keeps opposition parties out of Turkey's Parliament.

"Let's bring this Newroz fire to the June elections," said NazmiGür, the Van HDP MP who had traveled from the eastern area of Northern Kurdistan for the occasion. "We can bring down that sultan from his throne! We have the power to do it."

(mg/cm)