ISTANBUL - Around 50 people including an AFP journalist were arrested by police on March 17 in Istanbul on the sidelines of the Kurdish New Year celebrations, witnesses said.

AFP video journalist Eylul Yasar was preparing to film the Kurdish New Year celebrations when she was arrested at a checkpoint, journalists and lawyers at the scene reported.

They said Yasar objected to having an “intrusive” body search and was taken away in a police van.

The non-governmental organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called for her immediate release.

Erol Onderoglu, an RSF correspondent in Turkey, and around 50 people who turned up for the celebrations, which normally include traditional dances and a large bonfire, were also arrested at the site.

An AFP photographer said the bonfire had been cancelled.

Many Kurds, who make up about a fifth of Turkey’s estimated 85 million people, say they face significant discrimination in the country.

The former leading figure of the main pro-Kurdish party, Selahattin Demirtas, was imprisoned in 2016 for “terrorist propaganda”, while more than a hundred mayors of Kurdish localities saw elections cancelled in the last municipal vote in 2019.

Turkey has often insisted that it does not discriminate against Kurds as a minority, but rather, opposes the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, an organisation banned by Ankara and its Western allies as a terrorist organisation. AFP