Angry mobs were reported to have attacked Cemre Doğan, the head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) youth branch in Kayseri’s Kocasinan district as part of demonstrations protesting a car bomb attack that killed 13 soldiers and injured 56 others including civilians on Saturday.
Attacks by ultranationalist groups in several Turkish cities took a new turn when they targeted the CHP after first assailing offices of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
Police fired guns into air to disperse the protesters before putting Doğan into a police car.
A nationalist group of four people vandalized an HDP office in the western province of Çanakkale late on Saturday. According to local media, police briefly detained HDP members instead of the assailants.
Several other nationalist mobs also attacked HDP offices in İstanbul’s Kartal, Beylikdüzü and Bağcılar districts.
Tens of people gathered in front of the buildings, shouting “Martyrs won’t die, the motherland won’t be divided” slogans. Media outlets reported that two explosions were heard from the building in Beylikdüzü.
In the meantime, unidentified armed assailants attacked the party’s building in the Darıca district of Kocaeli and in Erzurum. (Turkey Purge)