At least 20 people were taken into custody in the southern province of Mersin on Saturday as police raided many houses as well as the offices of Göç-Der, the refugee association and Azadiya Welat paper.

Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Party Assembly member Ramazan Yýldýz, Dicle News Agency (DIHA) reporter Zeynep Kuriþ, Mesopotamia Cultural Center (MKM) artist Kadir Çat and many other BDP administrators and NGO executives are among those detained in the operation which was carried out in the scope of so-called KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) investigation.

The number of detainees is expected to increase.

Students at Mersin University have also staged a march on Friday in solidarity with the Kurdish political prisoners on hunger strike since 12 September.

Hundreds of students gathered on Çiftlikköy campus to call public attention to prisoners’ fast which has entered the 53rd day. “We want a solution, not deaths” was the main slogan chanted by students like hundreds of others across the country.

Students ended their demonstration with a press conference in which they called on the government to pave the way for dialogue and to take concrete steps to come up with a solution to the Kurdish problem in the country.