Turkish police detain 87 in anti-terror operations

ISTANBUL

At least 87 people have been detained in anti-terror operations across Turkey on Wednesday.

Anti-terror police raided a number of properties in 15 districts of Istanbul, including Beyoglu, Fatih, and Avcilar, looking for alleged members of the PKK terrorist organization.

Police detained at least 29 people, including nine lawyers. Five of this total were detained in the Batman, Antalya, Tunceli, Izmır and Sakarya provinces.

In the southern Kahramanmaras province, police detained 16 people, including a number of students, in anti-terror operations against the PKK and its youth wing. As a part of that operation, four people in the Istanbul, Elazig, Gaziantep, and Sanliurfa provinces were also detained.

In a separate raid in Kahramanmaras, nine people were detained.

Additionally, police held six people in the capital Ankara and eight in Turkey’s western Bursa province, plus five people in the southeastern Osmaniye province.

In Osmaniye, three of these people were arrested on charges of being a member of a terrorist organization and spreading propaganda for it. Two were released by the court pending trial.

Meanwhile, in Turkey’s western Manisa province, police detained 10 people in an anti-PKK operation.

Hatice Aslan and Sait Ayci, provincial co-chairs of the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), were among the detainees, police said.