SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Three Kurdish students were attacked at a university in Turkey’s southern province of Antalya this week, according to Turkish media.
Duvar news outlet reported that a group of 30 Turks attacked three Kurdish students at the campus of Akdeniz University in Antalya on Tuesday.
The three students, named as Botan Artuc, Feyzi Akan and Hatice Tong, were taken to a hospital in Antalya to receive treatments, Duvar cited Antalya Free Students Initiative as saying on Twitter.
A student said their friends were attacked “just because they were Kurds”, Duvar quoted him as saying.
Meral Danis Bestas, deputy chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), said the attackers had yet to be detained.
“We want this racist mob to be detained immediately and not be protected,” she was quoted as saying.
Attacks on Kurds frequently occur in Turkey. In November, a group of 30 Turks attacked three Kurdish men with “sharp objects” in in front of Ankara University Faculty of Law.
In August, a Kurdish family was attacked by a group of “300 racist people” in Elmali district, southwest of Antalya.
A Kurdish man and woman from Iranian Kurdistan were also attacked and beaten by a restaurant owner in Turkey in the same month.
On July 30, seven members of a Kurdish family were killed in Konya by armed assailants who tried to burn their house in what rights activists said was a racist attack.
The HDP said there had been several attacks on Kurds over the years.
“The hate speech and provocation of the authorities is the main cause of this massacre,” said Mithat Sancar, HDP’s co-president.
On July 21, a Kurdish farmer was killed in a village in Konya by attackers who shouted, “We don’t want Kurds here.”
In the same month, seven other Kurdish workers were injured in Derecine village in Turkey’s Sultandagi district, according to Mezopotamya news agency.
In May, another Kurdish family from the Kurdistan Region’s capital, Erbil, was also attacked by a group of Turks in Bozyazi district in Mersin.
Two members of the family including a father and a son were wounded.
In 2019, a group of tourists from the Kurdistan Region carrying a Kurdistan flag scarf was also attacked by locals in the city of Trabzon as they were trying to take pictures.
