September 24 () –
Turkish security forces have reported that a woman of Australian origin has been detained at Istanbul Airport for alleged links to the Kurdish Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which the Turkish government considers a terrorist organisation.
The woman has been identified as Cigdem Aslan and was arrested on September 15 as she was about to board a plane bound for Australia, sources close to the matter told the ‘Daily Sabah’ newspaper.
A few days after her arrest, she appeared before a court in Istanbul, which decided to place her in pre-trial detention pending trial for her alleged involvement in “propaganda events for the PKK in Australia.” She has also been accused of participating in events organized by groups “aligned with the organization.”
Australian authorities, for their part, have indicated that they are offering “consular assistance” to the citizen detained in Turkey, according to a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who has not given further details on the matter for “privacy reasons.”
Since the PKK took up arms in 1984 to demand independence from Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, more than 40,000 people have been killed in violence. The Turkish army has launched military operations in both Iraq and parts of Syria.
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