ANKARA, Feb 7 (AFP)  The pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party (HADEP) called
 Wednesday on Turkey's president and prime minister to find two party members missing after
 being summoned to a gendarmerie unit last month.

 Serdar Tanis, HADEP chairman in the southeastern town of Silopi, and party member Ebubekir
 Deniz disappeared January 25 after being summoned to the local gendarmerie.

 "Despite the fact that the Silopi gendarmerie commander has confessed to summoning them,
 the lack of any information on them is a serious source of concern," said a message faxed to
 President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit.

 The message was sent by HADEP's Ankara branch, Anatolia news agency reported. Similar
 messages were faxed by HADEP activists in Diyarbakir, central city of Turkey's mainly Kurdish
 southeast.

 "We call on authorities to find our two members, to shed light on this incident and to prevent the
 repetition of such inhumane and illegal practices," said a separate statement issued from
 HADEP headquarters here.

 The statement also condemned the detention of 30 people in Diyarbakir on Tuesday when
 security forces broke up a protest over the disappearences.

 Four HADEP members were detained in a similar protest in the city of Siirt in the southeast, it
 added. In neighboring Batman, 16 activists were detained Monday after staging a sit-in protest.

 The two missing men were last seen by two fellow party members who drove them to the
 gendarmerie station, according to HADEP deputy chairman Hamit Geylani. One hour later they
 could no longer be contacted on their mobile phones.

 Their families and lawyers have filed official complaints against the gendarmerie, holding it
 responsible for the disappearances.

 Geylani said the gendarmerie at first denied summoning the men, but then admitted they had
 been and allowed to leave.

 HADEP members are frequently accused of alleged ties to armed Kurdish rebels who have
 waged a 15-year war for self-rule in southeast Turkey.

 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