Turkish rights group claims Kurdish villages evacuated by force

 DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, July 31 (AFP) - Turkish security forces have evacuated two
 villages in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast by force and banned free movement in three
 others, Turkey's main human rights watchdog said Tuesday.

 The Turkish Human Rights Assocation (IHD) said in a statement that the Asat and Ortakli
 villages in Sirnak province were evacuated last Thursday after nearly two months of harassment
 by the local paramilitary police.

 "Some 250 people, all residents of the evacuated villages, are now waiting helplessly in (nearby)
 Beytussebap," which lies close to the Iraqi border, the IHD statement said.

 Authorities had also banned all entrances and exits from the villages of Ulucak, Dagalti and
 Hisarkapi, and were threatening the residents with evacuation.

 The IHD said that the clampdown came in the first week of June when paramilitary troops raided
 the five villages, holding the villagers responsible for a mine blast, which killed one soldier and
 injured ten others.

 "A total of 33 villagers were detained, questioned for days at the local police headquarters and
 subjected to torture and inhumane treatment," the statement said.

 It added that three of the detained were raped with truncheons, given electric shocks, forced to
 stand under scorching sun and had nails driven through their hands.

 The men, whose health had considerably deteriorated, were currently being held in
 Beytussebap prison with 23 other villagers.

 The IHD added that its appeals to local authorities as well as the interior ministry and the
 parliamentary human rights commission had gone unheeded.

 The forced evacuation of and movement ban imposed on villages was due to the "attitude of
 those who made it a habit to do evil unto its own citizens", the IHD charged.

 It called for the immediate lifting of the ban, permission for the villagers to return to their homes
 and sanctions against officials blamed for torture.

 Turkey's southeast was the theatre for 15 years of heavy fighting between government troops
 and rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who took up arms against Ankara in 1984 for
 Kurdish self-rule in the region.

 The conflict, which led to allegations of gross human rights violations on both sides including
 the forced evacuation and torching of villages, has claimed more than 36,000 lives.

 Fighting has scaled down since since September 1999, when jailed PKK leader Abdullah
 Ocalan urged his militants to abandon their armed campaign to seek a peaceful resolution to
 the Kurdish conflict.

 But the powerful Turkish military has dismissed the peace bid as a ploy, insisting that the
 rebels should either surrender or face the army.
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