“Eight suspects were caught in the operations organized at the addresses with the support of the special operations police,” Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu Agency reported, adding that the arrestees were working in Mersin’s municipality.
Anadolu described the suspects as “first-degree” relatives of PKK members killed during operations in the country’s rural areas.
The PKK confirmed that ten workers in Mersin’s municipality were arrested on Thursday, saying Turkish police arrested them after far-right opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) MP Olcay Kilavuz filed a lawsuit against the workers for carrying out “propaganda for the organization,” according to PKK-affiliated Rojnews.
The PKK is a Kurdish armed group that struggles for the increased cultural and political rights of Kurds in Turkey. Ankara considers it a terrorist organization and frequently launches operations targeting the group at home and southward across the border with the Kurdistan Region.
In early September, Kurdish employees of Istanbul’s municipality staged a sit-in before the institution demanding to return to work after they were fired for having participated in events held in Turkey to mark Halabja’s chemical attack and the Roboski massacre.
