Turkey Police Fire Tear Gas at Kurdish Protesters

Turkish anti-riot police on Saturday fired tear gas and water cannon at Kurdish protesters calling for the release of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan as the demonstration turned violent.

Some 100 Kurdish protesters hurled stones and Molotov cocktails at the police in the southeastern, Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir, after a major demo marking the anniversary of Ocalan's 1999 capture by Turkish agents.

Police responded with tear gas and water cannon.

Similar protests took place in other cities in Turkey's southeast, with police often intervening to disperse the groups.

A major demonstration also took place in the French city of Strasbourg, with 30,000 protesters taking part according to organizers although police said the number was closer to 9,000.

Ocalan, leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), has been serving a life sentence in a high-security prison on an island off Istanbul since 1999.

In February 1999, Turkish authorities nabbed him in Nairobi and swiftly sentenced him to death for treason. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment when Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2002.

The PKK, which is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community, launched an insurgency seeking self-rule in the southeast in 1984 that has claimed about 45,000 lives.