ANKARA, Feb 5 (AFP) - Turkish police on Monday detained 16 members of the
 pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party (HADEP) who staged a sit-in protest over the
 disappearance of two fellow party activists last month, a HADEP official told AFP.

 The demonstrators, among them the head of HADEP's local branch, were taken into custody in
 Batman city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, HADEP deputy chairman Hamit Geylani
 said.

 The sit-in protest in front of the HADEP office in Batman was staged to denounce the
 disappearance on January 25 of two HADEP members in nearby Silopi town after they were
 summoned to the station of paramilitary gendarme units, Geylani said.

 The two missing men, among them the chairman of HADEP's Silopi office, Serdar Tanis, were
 last seen by two fellow party members who drove them to the gendarmerie station.

 One hour after, they were not reachable on their mobile phones, Geylani said.

 Since then there was no trace of the two even though their families and lawyers resorted to all
 relevant judicial and administrative authorities.

 The families blamed the disappearances on the gendarmerie, which gave contradictory accounts
 of the incident, Geylani said.

 The gendarmerie first denied having summoned the men. Then it said they were summoned, but
 let go shortly afterwards, he added.

 HADEP members are frequently persecuted for alleged ties to armed Kurdish rebels, who have
 waged a 15-year war for self-rule in southeast Turkey with the conflict claiming some 36,500
 lives.

 The party itself faces a possible ban for alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK),
 considered a terrorist group by Ankara.

 HADEP, which favors a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish conflict and recognition of Kurdish
 cultural rights, denies the charges.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com