ANKARA, June 11 (AFP)  Police in southern Turkey detained 120 people at the
 weekend after declaring an amateur football tournament organized by the pro-Kurdish People's
 Democracy Party (HADEP) illegal, a party official told AFP on Monday.

 The detentions came on Sunday two weeks after the "Peace and Fraternity Football
 Tournament", involving 30 amateur teams, began in Adana province, said Rasit Gultekin, the
 deputy secretary-general of HADEP's Adana branch.

 "The police raided the fields where the tournament games were being played and took the
 players into custody," Gultekin said in a phone interview.

 "We cannot see any reason for the detentions," he said.

 He explained that the detained were being accused of participating in a sports event which did
 not have the necessary official permission, seeking to attract supporters for the outlawed
 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and spreading separatist propaganda.

 They were being questioned by a prosecutor at the state security court, Gultekin said.

 Turkish authorities frequently clamp down on HADEP, detaining or jailing its members on
 suspicion of links to the PKK which waged a 15-year armed campaign against Ankara for
 Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey.

 HADEP denies the charges, but nonetheless faces a possible ban for alleged association with
 the rebel group.

 Turkey's normally tense southeast has been relatively calm since September 1999, when the
 PKK ended its armed campaign to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict following peace calls
 from its jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

 But the powerful Turkish military has brushed aside the PKK truce as a "ploy" and has called
 on the rebels to either surrender or face the army's wrath.
***********************
The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com