Footage of a Turkish military operation against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was projected on the scoreboard of a stadium on Saturday, just before a football match between Sakaryaspor and Amedspor, a football club based in Diyarbakır province and known for its importance among Turkey’s Kurds, Turkish online news outlet T24 reported.
During the screening of the footage, a nationalist song titled “Ölürüm Türkiyem” (I die for Turkey) was heard in the stadium in Sakarya province, located on the Black Sea coast.
Following the match, Sakaryaspor fans attacked Amedspor football players in their locker room after the Kurdish team was defeated, T24 said.
Amedspor and its football players have faced several attacks since the club changed its name to incorporate Amed, the Kurdish name for the city of Diyarbakır, in 2014.
Since then, Amedspor fans and players have complained that they have been subject to racism by Turkish supporters and football association officials, who have banned supporters from attending several matches.
In August, the Turkish sports ministry prevented Amedspor from using a pitch for a planned ceremony to mark the start of the 2018-19 season. A Turkish court launched a prosecution on March 16 into the present and former presidents of Amedspor, based in the biggest city in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish Southeast, on charges of disseminating terrorist propaganda.
Amedspor’s own Twitter account also published a tweet showing Sakarya’s supporters attacking the bench.
ne yazık ki artık ülkemizde sporda şiddet ve militarizmin çok güçlü bir simbiyotik ilişkisi var. pic.twitter.com/bnkM98JXK3
— AMED SK (@AmedsporSK) October 14, 2018
Soyunma odamıza saldırı anı ve Sertaç hocaya saldırı anı @TFF_Org pic.twitter.com/S3PxFhUKsT
— AMED SK (@AmedsporSK) October 13, 2018
