Turkey: Tensions after pro-Ocalan Diyarbakir march banned

ANKARA, - A march organized by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) to demand the release of Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), has been banned, Turkish media reported today. The march was called for Saturday in Station Square in Diyarbakir, the capital of Turkey's northern Kurdish province.

Organizers will not accept the ban, press sources said.

''The ban is illegitimate, our people will not accept it,'' said BDP Vice President Aysel Tugluk, whose party is represented in the national parliament. BDP President Selahattin Demirtas said the BDP will be at Station Square on Saturday as planned. The march will only be ''propaganda for a terrorist organization,'' i.e. the PKK, according to the governor of Diyarbarkir, who issued the ban. (...)