ANKARA, March 8 (Reuters) - Turkish police detained 39 people including 12 women
when they attempted to stage a demonstration on Thursday marking International Women's
Day, state-run Anatolian news agency said.

It said the arrests followed warnings by the police in the northwestern town of Gebze that the
demonstration had not been officially authorised.

Most of those arrested were believed to belong to small left-wing parties and groups,
including a local official of the People's Democratic Party, HADEP, Turkey's only legal
Kurdish political party.

Elsewhere in the country, similar marches and demonstrations were held but no other
detentions were reported.

In Istanbul, a large crowd of women mostly made up of HADEP members chanted slogans
in support of captured guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan and protested against controversial
transfers of prisoners from old dormitory-type jails to cell-style
prisons.

Ocalan has been sentenced to death for spearheading an armed guerrilla campaign for
Kurdish self-rule in which over 30,000 people have died since 1984.

Istanbul police maintained a heavy profile during the demonstration and interrupted one
speaker when she demanded prevention of alleged torture of women at the hands of security
forces, the agency said.

No arrests were reported at that protest.

Turkey's shaky human rights record has come under closer scrutiny from its Western allies
since it became a European Union candidate two years ago.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com