Metropolitan Police Put Kurdish Community Centre Under ‘Siege’

The Metropolitan police’s counter terrorism unit raided the Kurdish Community Centre (KCC) in Haringey, north London, on Wednesday. It arrested six people as part of an investigation into the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been a proscribed organisation in the UK since 2001.

The raid coincided with the anniversary of the beginning of the Kurdish armed struggle against the Turkish state, which is also the date the PKK was founded. Kurdish leftist groups say that the anniversary is an important cultural event.

Footage shared with Novara Media shows people gathered in the road outside the centre, chanting “hands off the KCC!” as dozens of police officers block the road and helicopter is heard buzzing overhead.

Aso Kamali, co-chair of the Kurdish People’s Assembly Britain, told Novara Media that the actions of the police showed that Kurds in the UK were a “community being discriminated against for the nature of their ethnicity”.

Kamali said she was left bleeding following the raid and may need to go to hospital.

The Democratic Communities Congress of Kurdistand in Europe (DCDK-E), an umbrella group of Kurdish leftist groups in Europe, released a statement saying that the Kurdish community in the UK was “effectively placed under siege”, and said that police were violent and aggressive towards those who were detained.

​​​​Kurds, an oppressed minority in Turkey, have been engaged in a revolutionary struggle against the Turkish state since 1978, though there have been regular Kurdish rebellions since the beginning of the 20th century.

In recent years, UK authorities have taken a harsher stance on criminalising any suggestion of support for the PKK, including by prosecuting Kurds and their supporters who protest using banners or flags with PKK symbols.

UK Kurds have long suspected that their oppression by the British state is in order to appease Turkey, a key strategic ally and customer for arms exports. In recent years, the UK has been courting Turkey as a trade and military partner following Brexit.

The KCC’s anniversary celebration on 27 November last year was also raided by the police, though that time they were pushed back by Kurds at the centre and forced to leave. In January, two people were convicted at Westminster Magistrates Court for carrying PKK flags at a protest in London.

However, supporting the release from prison of PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan, who has been in prison in Turkey since 1999, does not constitute overt support for the PKK, and the Freedom for Ocalan campaign is supported by many trade unions. Ocalan is an inspirational figure for Kurds around the world. He advocates for a loosely organised independent Kurdish state and is influenced by libertarian and anarchist ideas.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, whose Tottenham constituency contains the biggest proportion of diaspora Kurds in the UK, has previously voiced support for the campaign to release Ocalan. In 2016, David Lammy was photographed at a protest where Kurdish groups displayed flags including the proscribed PKK flag.

Kamali shared an image of Turkan Ozcan, co-chair of the community centre, with David Lammy on 13 November 2023 at a dinner for supporters and Labour Party members.

Kamali said: “If we are such a threat why was [David Lammy] happy working with us?”

Commander Helen Flanagan, from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command said in a statement: “This activity has come about following a significant investigation and operation into activity we believe is linked to the terrorist group PKK. These are targeted arrests of those we suspect of being involved in terrorist activity linked to the group.

“I hope that these arrests show that we will not tolerate any sort of terrorist activity and that we will take action where we believe there is harm being caused to communities here, in the UK or elsewhere.”

NUMBERS NEEDED ❗️- Kurdish Community Centre Stanhope Gardens, Green Lanes / North London. Police have violently preemptively arrested 6 and raided the centre, claiming they will occupy it for the next two weeks. Authoritarian state is here, stand with your comrades now! ❗️

— Sisters Uncut (@SistersUncut) November 27, 2024

As of Wednesday evening, community centre remains blocked off following the raid, and a police statement confirmed that, “The search at the community centre is expected to last up to two weeks. Both the centre and the surrounding area will be closed to the public while officers continue their work there.”

The raid on the KCC took place against a backdrop of continuing oppression in Turkey, where the government has continued to arbitrarily sack democratically elected mayors of Kurdish areas and replace them with its own appointees. On Friday 22 November, police clashed with local demonstrators in Dersim after the attempted arrest of co-mayor Birsen Orhan.

However, there has been a softening on the issue on Turkey’s nationalist far right. On 26 November, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli called for PKK founder Ocalan to be allowed to meet with members of the pro-Kurdish DEM party, and even suggested that he should be “released and brought to the parliament to declare PKK’s disarming and abolishing”.

This was not the first time that Bahçeli had called for parole for Ocalan in recent months. The softening of his position indicates that there may be a new opening for a renewed Kurdish peace process which broke down in 2013.

Bahçeli recently said that “Turkey cannot endure another period of chaos.” The prospect of further conflict between Iran and Israel could lead to further unrest among Turkey’s Kurds.

The Turkish state may perceive it is in a strong position to strike a peace deal, following years of military incursions into the Kurdish highlands in Iraq, and along the Syrian border.

Kamali told Novara Media: “I believe regional instability is the reason why he wants to begin the talks.”

Kamali said she believes that the Turkish state “wants to bring about a situation in which it is the Kurds who are declining the peace talks.”

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson told Novara Media: “We will provide a further update, which would include details of alleged offences, if anyone is charged,” and added that “we are mindful that closing the community centre may cause inconvenience.”

Asked for comment about whether there was a danger of creating the perception that the Metropolitan police was being influenced by a foreign government, the police spokesperson responded: “We’re not adding to our police statement. You could contact the home office or foreign office if you wish to pursue a statement in respect of foreign governments.”