PKK sympathizers disrupt Turkish event at UK parliament

LONDON

A meeting of a Turkish group in the U.K. parliament, hosted by a British lawmaker, was disrupted by PKK sympathizers on Monday night.

During an event on British-Turkish relations organized by the U.K. branch of the Union of European Turkish Democrats (UETD), a group which had posed as audience members started shouting anti-Turkish slogans, disrupting the meeting.

Revealing t-shirts bearing images of the PKK’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, the group’s sympathizers swore at people in Committee Room 16 at the House of Commons where the event was being held.

Police intervened and the group was removed from the room.

Some of the protesters physically struck out at Merve Demir, the UETD’s president of political affairs.

Demir told reporters she would share cellphone footage of the incident with the police and file a complaint.

The PKK is a proscribed terrorist organization in the U.K.

The meeting was hosted by Philip Hollobone, a Conservative Party lawmaker in the British parliament and featured Ayse Sozen Usluer, head of the foreign relations department at the Turkish Presidency.