Turkey detains 110 pro-Kurdish suspects ahead of vote

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00:00 Well, France 24's Jasper Mortimer has been covering this story for us from Ankara.

00:03 He joins me now from there.

00:04 Jasper, you've been talking to people in Diyarbakir, where many of these arrests took place.

00:08 What's behind them?

00:09 Well, state television says the detainees are suspected of recruiting for the PKK, the

00:16 Kurdish militant group, or financing the PKK.

00:19 However, we've heard that line before.

00:22 Whenever Kurds are detained, that is the usual explanation.

00:27 The Diyarbakir Bar Association says the charges against today's detainees are not known because

00:35 the government has placed a confidentiality order on the investigation.

00:39 I've spoken to two contacts in Diyarbakir, and they both said that this move is related

00:45 to the elections, and that's a certainty.

00:48 Everything that the government does these days is with an eye on the elections.

00:53 And they also said the nature of the people being detained, lawyers and journalists, this

00:59 is significant.

01:01 These are the people whom the opposition would use to watch the ballot boxes after voting

01:07 has ended to make sure that votes are counted as cast, and if anything illegal does happen,

01:16 then to report it.

01:18 And the Kurdish political party, the HDP, the third largest party in parliament, has

01:23 issued a statement saying it is no coincidence that lawyers who are going to protect the

01:29 ballot boxes and journalists who are going to inform the public have been detained.

01:34 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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