Social agencies that help homeless youth in Ottawa say the combined pressures of the pandemic and inflation are causing a surge in demand for services.
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In October 2014, protesters in dozens of cities and towns throughout Turkey came together to pressure the government into providing assistance to the mostly Kurdish inhabitants of Kobanî, a Syrian town directly adjacent to the Turkish border that was then under heavy siege by Islamic State forces.
Police and demonstrators clashed violently and repeatedly during these protests. Among those supporting the protests were members of opposition political parties such as the Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, or “HDP”).
Six years later, on 25 September 2020, Cihan Erdal, a PhD student at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, was detained in Turkey, along with dozens of other academics, activists, and elected officials, for his involvement in the HDP at the time of the 2014 protests. Erdal had returned to Turkey in August to conduct research and check on his elderly parents.