Pro-Kurdish DEM’s office in Istanbul targeted in armed attack

A local office of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party in Istanbul’s Sultangazi district was targeted in a shooting attack early on Sep 28.

The office was empty at the time, and no injuries were reported while bullets broke the office windows, according to reporting from Mezopotamya Agency (MA).

Sultangazi District Co-Chair Faruk Kaya said that local residents informed them the attack took place around 5.00 am. Police have conducted an investigation at the scene.

Authorities have not yet identified the perpetrators of this latest attack, and investigations are ongoing.

While no one was harmed in this incident, attacks on pro-Kurdish parties’ political offices have occurred sporadically, usually when the offices are vacant. The most serious recent attack occurred in 2021 in Izmir, when a gunman stormed the local office of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the DEM’s successor, and killed party worker Deniz Poyraz.

The court ruled that the assault was not a politically motivated h
ate crime or an organized crime, but rather an individual murder.The perpetrator, an ultranationalist person according to his social media photos, was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment for premeditated murder.

Source: English Bianet