Hundreds of Turkish intellectuals, including authors, poets, academics, artists and peace activists, released a written statement to demand the resignation of Interior Minister Ýdris Naim Þahin for the state violence committed to prevent the 14 July rally of Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and Democratic Society Congress (DTK) in Diyarbakýr.

The intellectuals protesting against the injury and arrest of dozens of people and police violence against the Kurdish people and deputies said that;

“We as the citizens of the Turkish Republic want to live in peace with the Kurdish people on the basis of equal citizenship. Ashamed of the state violence committed to prevent the Diyarbakýr rally which BDP had organized in the scope of basic democratic rights, we condemn the government’s efforts to put the blame on the BDP and we call for the resignation of Interior Minister who has displayed an aggressive attitude towards the Kurdish people since he took office and has recently gone so far as to call severely ill treated BDP deputies ‘miserable’.”

Among the intellectuals signing their name to the statement are Yaþar Kemal, Adalet Aðaoðlu, Ahmet Ümit, Zülfü Livaneli, Cengiz Çandar, Mithat Sancar and Oya Baydar.

The Governor of Diyarbakýr denied permission for the “Democratic Resistance for Freedom” rally on 14 July when

thousands of police officers on duty committed brutal violence against demonstrators and BDP deputies as BDP and DTK wanted to stage the rally despite the ban. Around six thousand police officers and hundreds of armed police vehicles were sent to Diyarbakýr from many provinces including Istanbul, Ankara, Konya, Erzurum and Malatya.

17 people were arrested and dozens of others were injured as a result of police attack on demonstrators.