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Top Kurdish lawyer and rights activist shot dead in southeast Turkey

An unidentified gunman killed a prominent Kurdish lawyer and rights activist on Saturday in what the pro-Kurdish HDP Party called a "planned assassination", urging people to take to the streets in protest. 

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Witnesses said Tahir Elci was shot in the head after making a statement to media in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's troubled, mainly Kurdish southeast where he was president of the local bar association. A policeman was also killed in an ensuing exchange of fire.

tahir elci
Tahir Elci, the head of Diyarbakir Bar Association, (2nd R) is escorted by plainclothes police officers as he leaves from his office in Diyarbakir, Turkey, early October 20, 2015. Sertac Kayar/Reuters

Elci had been criticized in Turkey for saying the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was not a terrorist organization, though he had denounced PKK violence. He was facing trial over his comments which had infuriated state prosecutors.

Hundreds of people have been killed since a ceasefire between the PKK and Turkish security forces collapsed in July, reigniting a conflict in which some 40,000 people have died since it began in 1984.

tahir elci
People wait in front of a hospital morgue where killed Bar Association President Tahir Elci is brought for an autopsy in Kurdish dominated southeastern city of Diyarbakir, Turkey, November 28, 2015. Sertac Kayar/Reuters

The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) called a protest in Istanbul and condemned Elci's killing which it described as an "planned assassination" in a written statement.

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"In the place left by Tahir Elci, thousands more Tahir Elcis will carry on the work in the struggle for law and justice," it said.

The HDP said Elci had been targeted by the ruling AK party and its media and it called for political parties, civil society and professional groups to "raise their voices" in protest.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who founded the AK party, said in a speech later that a policeman had also been killed during the attack. "This incident shows how Turkey is right in its determination to fight terrorism," he said.

"SPRAYED WITH BULLETS"

In Reuters TV footage Elci can be seen lying on the ground with a head injury, apparently still breathing, with blood streaming onto the ground as people continue to exchange fire.

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"The moment the statement ended, the crowd was sprayed with bullets," a local official from the pro-Kurdish HDP party, Omer Tastan, told Reuters. 

"A single bullet struck Elci in the head," he said, adding that 11 people had also been injured in the incident.

At a news conference with Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag, Interior Minister Efkan Ala said a gun battle erupted after someone shot at police from an unidentified car. He did not say if anybody had been detained or not. 

The Diyarbakir governor's office declared a curfew in the area after the incident. Bozdag and Ala expressed their condolences. Ala said four investigators will be assigned to the case.

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Turkey, the United States and the European Union classify the PKK, which is demanding greater autonomy for Turkey's Kurds, as a terrorist organization.

Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2015. Follow Reuters on Twitter.
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