Hundreds of people have gathered in the border area in Mardin's Nusaybin district in solidarity with Ayşe Gökkan, mayor of Nusaybin, who is on death fast against the building of the wall between the district and the Qamishlo city in west Kurdistan. Gökkan is staging her protest -which began as sit-in on 30 October and turned into death fast one day later-in a mined field at the border for the last three days.

Turkish police, having already surrounded the area as of early morning hours, to prevent Gökkan from contacting demonstrators, brutalised the people with tear gas and pressure water in the afternoon. Tension in the Yeşilkent neighborhood continues.

On the other hand, Turkish security officials also used pressure water against dozens of children who have gathered at the border, on the Qamishlo side in west Kurdistan, and threw stones to a military riot control vehicle intervening the mass in Nusaybin.

Turkish soldiers have also covered the wire fences on the border with clothes in order to prevent Gökkan's communication with the people who will also walk to the Qamishlo border today in solidarity with the mayor of Nusaybin.

Colleagues of the mayor and workers at the council also stopped working and joined the protest at the border on Friday.

Mayors of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) have gathered in the main Kurdish city Diyarbakır where they later issued a press statement in solidarity with Ayşe Gökkan today.

Making a statement on behalf of mayors, Diyarbakır mayor Osman Baydemir called on Kurdish people to go to the Nusaybin border area on 7 November to display a democratic stance for peace, equality and freedom and to strongly voice their democratic demand for peace.