A groundbreaking anti-terror protest in Türkiye's southeastern Diyarbakır province is about to enter its fourth year as families hold their ground and refuse to leave until they are reunited with their children, who they say were abducted by the PKK terrorist group.
Since Sept. 3, 2019, the protesting families have been camping outside regional offices of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), a party the Turkish government says has links to the PKK.
The number of protesting families, all yearning to be reunited with their children, currently stands at 304.
On the 1,095th day of the protest, to date, a total of 37 families have gotten their children back from the terrorist clutches of the PKK.
Distraught mother Hacire Akar started the protest on Aug. 22, 2019, for her son, and ultimately was successful in getting him back, setting an example for others who also want to reach out to their kidnapped children.
Mehmet Laçin, a protesting father, said he joined the protest for his daughter and even continued the sit-in in Türkiye's Aegean province of Izmir when he had to go there for an operation.
Then he traveled 600 kilometers (373 miles) from Izmir to the capital Ankara on foot in the name of his beloved daughter.
With each passing day, there has been an increase in the number of families who decide to take part in the anti-terror protest for their children.
The protest spread to other provinces both at home and abroad, including the eastern Turkish provinces of Muş and Van, and all the way to Berlin. However, the protest in the German capital was short-lived due to governmental indifference.
In the face of the protests, the HDP tried to shut down its offices in some provinces for a while to avoid having to face families pleading for their children.
Afterward, the political party moved its activities from provincial buildings to district buildings.
The PKK terror group has tried other ways to make the families give up their fight. While some families were threatened, others saw their children speaking on PKK-affiliated media outlets, saying that they had to end the sit-in.
But the young people who escaped the PKK and surrendered to Turkish security forces later admitted that the terror group forced them to read those statements.
Thanks to a host of successful counterterrorism operations and persuasion efforts carried out by Turkish security forces, PKK terror members keep laying down arms.
The number of terrorists who have laid down their arms through persuasion efforts this year alone stands at 75, according to official figures.
In Türkiye, offenders linked to terror groups who surrender are eligible for possible sentence reductions under a repentance law.
The PKK terror group, battered and demoralized by Turkish security forces' successful operations, has been in recent years losing members and failing to attract recruits, according to Turkish officials.
The sit-in received great support from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, members of the European Parliament and the ambassadors to Türkiye of Ukraine, the United Kingdom, India, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria.
In its more than 40-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union – has been responsible for the deaths of more than 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.
