ISTANBUL, April 9 (Reuters) - Turks chanted anti-Kurdish slogans and burned Kurdish
businesses after police found an 11-year-old girl strangled to death in the home of a man
from the mainly Kurdish southeast, officials said on Monday.

Some 5,000 people took to the streets in the western town of Susurluk on Sunday shouting
"Death to Kurds!" and burning Kurdish businesses, the Hurriyet newspaper said.

The Susurluk prosecutor's office told Reuters the riots broke out after the body was found on
Saturday in the home of a man from Diyarbakir, regional capital of the mainly Kurdish
southeast, and grew in size and intensity the following day.

An autopsy revealed no sign the girl had been raped, contrary to newspaper reports, the
prosecutor's office said.

Groups chanting "Damn the PKK!" set fire to a roadside rest station and other establishments
owned by Kurds, prompting the sending of security forces to restore order. Some residents
from the southeast fled Susurluk, Hurriyet said.

Fighting between Turkish forces and separatist Kurdish guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK) seeking autonomy in the southeast has killed over 30,000 people since the
mid-1980s, but has tailed off sharply since Turkey captured PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan
and sentenced him to death in 1999.

The violence has driven many Kurds to seek stable employment in the relatively prosperous
west of Turkey.

The Susurluk riots coincide violent demonstrations across Turkey over the government's
handling of a financial crisis that has slashed the value of the Turkish lira and sent prices of
staple goods soaring.

The provincial governor of the region where Susurluk is located told the state-run Anatolian
news agency four police had been injured by stone-throwing rioters and said 140 people he
described as "ringleaders" had been arrested.

A search for the suspect, believed to have fled the city, is under way, the province's police
commander told the agency.

Susurluk Mayor Hayrullah Koroglu said the rioting had been orchestrated for political and
commercial motives.

"The attack on our citizens from the east and their businesses makes you think. What did
these citizens ever do? It shows that some people are provocatively using the event to secure
commercial and political gains," he said.

Local bars and restaurants would be kept from selling alcohol for three days as of Monday,
when the girl was to be buried, as a hedge against further unrest, he said.

Turkey's Human Rights Association called the rioting and media coverage of it an attempt to
incite hatred against Kurds and sow discord in Turkish society.

"Bringing forward the ethnic background of a 'possible' suspect, and thus exposing citizens
of the same ethnic background and their property to danger cannot be accepted," the group
said in a statement.

Anti-PKK and anti-Kurdish sentiments, often relating to demands that Turkey allow Kurdish
education and broadcasting to advance its candidacy for European Union membership, have
figured in mainstream Turkish politics in recent years.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com