Tens of thousands of citizens filled the squares for Civil Friday Prayers as part of the civil disobedience campaign calling for a democratic solution to the Kurdish conflict.

Muslims, including some women, gathered in Van, Hakkari, Yüksekova, Doðubayazýt, Tatvan, Bulanýk, Erciþ, Adana, Ýzmir, Manisa, Silopi, Siirt, Nusaybin, Cizre, Suruç, Kýzýltepe, Derik, Ýdil, Batman, Bismil, Þýrnak, Viranþehir, Antep and most notably Diyarbakýr to pray on the squares instead of mosques.

In Diyarbakýr, six thousand citizens packed Dað Kapý Square, where Kurdish leader Sheikh Said was hanged in 1925. Prayers ran for the fourth consecutive week with attendance steadily increasing. The sermon was read in the Kurdish dialects of Kurmanci and Zazaki.

The urgent demands of those participating in the demonstration are: education in the mother tongue; a stop to military and political operations; the release of all political prisoners, including Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan; and an end to the 10 percent election threshold.

Stepping up security, the square was surrounded by police and armored vehicles. Police snipers posted atop the city walls and around the square.

After the prayers, police tore down the Democratic Solution Tent yet again and stuffed it in the back of a police truck.