No end in sight to the Turkish state's desecration of graves

Turkish soldiers have vandalized the 'Martyr Hevidar and Martyr Amed Cemetery' of PKK guerrillas in Lice.

The Cemetery of 'Martyr Hevidar and Martyr Amed' located in the village of Sis in Lice district of Amed, where the guerrillas of the People's Defence Forces (HPG) are interred, has been desecrated by Turkish soldiers joining an operation in the region.

During their visit to the graves of their children and relatives on Ramadan holiday, local people found the tombstones smashed and a trench digged on the cemetery's path. Furthermore two containers which had been placed at the cemetery at the visitors disposal have also been burnt down.

The families expressed their anger on this barbaric behaviour, piled up the remains of the tombstones and after reading some prayers on the graves they returned from the cemetery.

This barbarity of the Turkish state is not the first case to happen. Attacks on graveyards, which is an internationally condemned violent act against values of conscience and humanity, has always been a systematic policy of the Turkish state.

In this month alone, soldiers and village guards of the Turkish military who went on an operation in the Kato area in Şırnak's Beytüşşebap district on the 18th of April have inflicted damage on the graves of PKK guerrillas in the region.

Walls of the 'Martyr Kurtay Feraşîn' Cemetery at the Meydan Kolya Upland and the house built for visitors in the graveyard were also destructed by Turkish soldiers using cranes.