80 Police injuredSerious violence at Kurdish Festival in Mannheim
09.09.2012 · Baden-Wuerttemberg Interior Minister gall has condemned the riots at a Kurdish Kurdish Festival in Mannheim and announced consequences. On Saturday, 80 police officers were injured by rioters.
DAPD (COPYRIGHT)For hours around 2500 violent or violent Kurds and 600 police officers on the may market area have faced is
When serious rioting during a Kurdish cultural festival in Mannheim 80 police officers are injured on Saturday. According to police, several hundred Kurds attacked the forces on the may market area. Most police officers were injured by the missiles such as bricks and bottles. A police officer was beaten with an iron bar and suffered ribs. Fireworks also were fired. The police arrested 31 people. 13 Service vehicles were damaged.
Baden-Wuerttemberg Interior Minister Reinhold Gall (SPD) condemned the riots and announced consequences. "It was gratuitous violence against the police," gall said on Sunday. "It is utterly unacceptable to wear political conflicts on the back of the police force." The organizers of the Festival with 40 000 visitors had been "completely overwhelmed" and would have to take more responsibility for future events
In addition to flags and T-Shirts with symbols of banned organizations, the police made sure four knives and a brass knuckles on the weekend. The cultural festival was held for the 20th time. The previous events were peacefully expired according to the Federation of Kurdish associations in Germany (Yek-KOM).Mannheim Mayor Peter Kurz (SPD) said: "It is outrageous for me that rioters use an otherwise peaceful cultural festival to such acts of violence."
According to police estimates, nearly 40,000 Kurds from across Europe came on Saturday in Mannheim, Germany. The violence was a 14-year-old Kurd who wanted the flag a banned organization on the Festival site according to gall.Security forces of the organizer had attempted to stop him. When that was unsuccessful, they would have called the police to help.
The rampage was probably a just wanted the flag a banned organization on the Festival site according to police
When the officers arrived, they were attacked by a group of 100 to 200 of Kurds."That was the catalyst for further attacks on the police, where the rioters on the protection of the other visitors of the Festival could trust." "They made it impossible to officials, to isolate them or to determine the identity", gall said.
"No chance to calm the situation"
The violent Kurds were loudly supported by many thousands of other event visitors. You have had "no chance" to calm the situation, was announced by the police. The situation calmed down only after the end of the event in the evening.
The Gewerkschaft der Polizei (GdP) condemned the acts of violence. The policy must work to ensure, that in the future such events no longer may take place, it was said in a communication of the GdP
Kurds, cultural festivals and the fight of the PKK
Officially, the Federation of Kurdish associations in Germany (Yek-KOM) to a large Kurdish cultural festival had invited to Mannheim. Unofficially, but the event ran under the title "Freedom for Abdullah Ocalan - A status for Kurdistan".
So, it reported the Mannheim local press. That was not surprising. Because since the PKK in 1993 was banned as a terrorist organisation, Yek-KOM is the legal organization of the PKK in Germany.Yek-Kom "Confederation of Kurdish associations in Europe" (Kon-Kurd) belongs to with similar organisations in other countries, which has its headquarters in Brussels. Therefore the 40,000 participants from several countries at the Festival had arrived at the weekend to Mannheim, part in marches, for example, from Strasbourg to Mannheim.
Everywhere dominated the Kurdish colours of red, white and green, many banners showed Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence in a Turkish prison. As transparent of a banned organization they should not appear in public.
The organizers point out that similar cultural festivals are expired in the past few years without violence and riots.
In contrast to previous years, tensions between Kurdish extremists and Turkish nationalists have however become in Turkey, also as a result of the civil war in Syria. In Syria controlled the Kurdish "the Democratic Union Party" (PSYD), which is close to the PKK and collaborates with this, most Kurdish towns along the border with Turkey. In these places, large posters hanging on the official buildings with Ocalan. No small part of the fighters of the PKK, fighting the Turkish army in Turkey to be Syrian Kurds.
The PKK had been Germany after a wave of attacks in more than 20 German cities, which had been mainly Turkish facilities in 1993 as a terrorist organisation classified in and banned. The violence continued from 1994 to 1996 with highway blockades, arson attacks and riots, but ebbed. in 1998, the Federal Prosecutor the PKK as a criminal classified Association, 2004, the Supreme Court restricted this term on the leadership of the PKK.
The Federal Interior Ministry however 2008 confirmed that the PKK handle a terrorist organisation.Osman Ocalan, the brother of Abdullah Öcalan, declared the end of the PKK's armed struggle in September 1999. After that in Turkey the fronts between the Government again have hardened Erdogan, who initially had sought a peaceful solution to the Kurdish conflict through more rights for the Kurds, and the Kurds in Turkey, providing almost a quarter of the population, the PKK has again called to arms.(forth.)
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