JINHA

TRABZON – At the funeral of a police officer killed in the conflict the Turkish state has started in Northern Kurdistan, women criticized the state and said they wanted no AKP representatives at the funeral.

Popular opinion is increasingly turning against the war that Turkey’s AKP (Justice and Development Party) has started in Northern Kurdistan (in eastern and southeastern Turkey). In the Western part of Turkey, women are often expected to praise the state at the funerals of Turkish soldiers and police killed in the conflict. Increasingly, women are rebelling against this expectation and calling for peace.

Police officer Soner Yıldırım was killed in an attack on police in the largely Kurdish province of Şırnak. At Soner’s funeral in the town of Tonya, located in the Black Sea province of Trabzon, his relative Ayşe Bektaş criticized the state system and the AKP. She noted that people in Turkey did not want to become police officers, but had no choice.

“Teachers who aren’t given a job have to go and become police. Then we get the news that they’re martyred,” said Ayşe. “It cuts us to the quick. We don’t want to see anyone from the AK Party here.” Mourners echoed Ayşe’s sentiments.

(gc/cm)