Prominent Kurdish Rights Activist Killed in Turkey's Diyarbakir

The head of the bar association in Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakir province was killed on Saturday in a shootout that broke out when he was speaking to the press, local media reported.

ANKARA (Sputnik) — Turkey’s Todays Zaman newspaper cited President Recep Erdogan who said that Bar Association President Tahir Elci was gunned down alongside a policeman. Several other policemen were injured.

Moments before he was killed, Tahir #Elci was calling for peace: "we do not want guns, clashes or operations here". Then shot dead.

— Mark Lowen (@marklowen) 28 ноября 2015

Elci, a Kurdish rights activist, has recently been arrested by Turkish police for saying that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was not a terrorist organization, as claimed by Ankara.

Violence in Turkey escalated in July, when the Turkish government launched a military campaign against PKK, a Kurdish group fighting for independence from Turkey.