Mother vows to protest until PKK returns daughter

BERLIN

The mother of a 20-year-old girl staged her third protest Friday in Berlin in hopes of reuniting with her daughter who was allegedly "kidnapped" by the PKK terrorist group.

Wearing a T-shirt with a picture of her daughter, Nilufer T, Maide T. demonstrated in front of the Brandenburg Gate.

Turkish political figures and union heads living in Germany joined in support.

“They will use my daughter like a piece of rag and throw her away,” said Maide T, who noted her daughter suffers from asthma.

“I’ll do whatever needs to be done for my child.”

She reiterated her call for German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer to help find her daughter.

“I still haven’t heard from my daughter. This does not mean that I will end my protest,” she said.

During her first protest in front of the Navende Kurdistaniyen li Berline association Feb 29, Maide T. said she would protest for an hour every Friday at 4 p.m. local time (1500GMT).

She said she plans to protest outside the Federal Convention next week.

Mothers in Turkey have also been staging a sit-in outside the southeastern Diyarbakir provincial office of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) that is accused by the government of having links to the terrorist YPG/PKK, since September 2019.

The protests were started by three women who said their children were forcibly recruited or kidnapped by YPG/PKK terrorists. The number of families at the protest has steadily increased in recent months.

Families are demanding the return of their children, whom they claim were deceived or kidnapped by the terror group.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the YPG/PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and EU -- has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants.

The YPG is the PKK’s Syrian offshoot.

*Writing by Sena Guler