40 stage local protest for Kurds

Chanting "Free, free, Kurdistan" and "Stop killing Kurds," about 40 protesters marched along South State Street and through the Diag on Friday afternoon in an effort to heighten local awareness of conflicts in Turkey between Kurds and Turks.

"We're protesting the kidnapping of Ocalan," protester Zozek Khailany said.

The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported Friday that the country's Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said a commando team captured Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

In Turkey's Kurdish southeast, protests over the arrest continued. Security forces on Friday fired on Kurdish demonstrators in the town of Kiziltepe, killing one and wounding five, said Aslan Yildiz, an official of the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy

DANA LINNANE/Daily Kurdo Zebary and his son, Karzan Zebary lead the protest for Kurdish freedom on Friday. About 40 people joined the protest in the Diag.

Party.

Ecevit renewed surrender appeals Saturday to Ocalan's fighters, asking them to lay down their arms in exchange for clemency.

But the protest along the streets of Ann Arbor was non-violent, consisting of local residents - many of Kurdish ethnicity and other supporters of the Kurdish cause.

"We need to send a message to the public in this American city to stop killing Kurds," said Fadil Rawadzy, a Washtenaw Community College student who said he came to the United States after he "escaped from Saddam" Hussein.

Protesters said they want students on campus to understand what is taking place in Turkey although it may not affect them directly.

"The campus is where students are, and students are the future," protester Zana Zangara said.

The protesters passed out literature saying that because Kurdistan was never granted independence after World War I, many of the world's 35 million Kurds reside in Turkey, where the government refuses to allow the practice of Kurdish culture.

"If you speak the Kurdish language in Turkey you get arrested," said Asad Khailany, a computer information systems professor at Eastern Michigan University. "Yet the U.S. government supplies (Turkey) with unlimited military help."

Hikamad Piromari, holding a "Free Kurdistan" sign in one hand and the hand of his 3-year-old son in the other, said he wanted to instill ethnic pride in his son.

"The Kurdish people are also people," Piromari said.

"We're here to show the wide world we have the right to live and vote," said Kamaran Zanzana, who helped organize the demonstration.

Turkey has taken a hard line against Kurdish demonstrators, arresting more than 1,000 since Ocalan's capture, according to the independent Human Rights Association.

Reports said the intelligence agencies of the United States or Israel tipped off Turkey of Ocalan's whereabouts.

Israel denies any role, going so far as to publish a statement from the Mossad spy agency on Friday and meeting Kurdish representatives in Germany.

Washington officials said the U.S. took no part in Ocalan's capture, but had no comment on whether it helped track him down.

The United States, like Turkey, considers Ocalan a terrorist. He is the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party, which has fought Turkey since 1984 for autonomy in a conflict in the southeast that has killed about 37,000 people.

-Daily Staff Reporters Nick Bunkley and Jewel Gopwani contributed to this report.

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