JINHA

MÊRDÎN – In the city of Midyat, in Mardin province, police arrested three and wounded five in a violent intervention against a march in support of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) that locals say was designed to provoke ethnic tensions.

Youth group DEM-GENÇ (Democratic Youth Confederation) organized a march in the Kurdish province of Mardin to support the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which is running the most youth and women candidates of any party in Turkey's June 7 elections. As youth marched from the HDP election headquarters in the town of Midyat to that in the nearby neighborhood of Estel, they chanted "long live the fraternity of peoples" and "long live the leader Apo," referring to the jailed leader of the PKK.

Police attacked the march with pepper spray, water cannons, batons and rubber bullets. Five were wounded, including Filiz Işık, a member of the Midyat municipal assembly. Three of the wounded were hospitalized and three more demonstrators were violently arrested. They were not released until late that night.

"We didn't do anything illegal in the march, we didn't provoke the police and we didn't throw stones," said Çekdar Pişkin, one of the hospitalized marchers. "I don't understand why the police attacked us."

The provocation was designed to provoke tensions between the town's two main ethnic groups, Arabs and Kurds, according to Arab HDP MP candidate for Midyat Mehmet Ali Aslan, who works alongside Kurds in the multicultural party.

"The police are trying to provoke the sensitive situation between Kurds and Arabs in Estel," said Mehmet. "I congratulate ourArab people for not supporting the police in their intervention and for fighting back the system's games."

(mc/zd/cm)