The Turkish police attacked a crowd of people in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority city of Dersim on Saturday to prevent the funeral procession to be held for the veteran Kurdish politician Aysel Doğan, who died on Wednesday while she was in exile in Germany.

After her death, the remains of Aysel Doğan were brought to her hometown Dersim for the funeral procession.

A large crowd in Dersim met on a highway to accompany the funeral car and to participate in the procession. A convoy with the funeral car was on its way to the district of Gazik, to the family house of Doğan, when hundreds of police officers stopped the convoy and the funeral vehicle at a checkpoint.

The police did not allow Doğan’s remains to be taken to the family house, Mezopotamya News Agency reported.

People began to protest against the police’s attempt to prevent the funeral procession by a sit-in.

The police attacked the protestors with tear gas and water cannons.

Alican Önlü, MP for the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) reacted to the police’s violence.

“They can turn to violence. They can arrest, even kill people, but we will not leave. We are not afraid of you; you are afraid of our dead ones,” he said.

“The police forcibly took hold of Doğan’s remains,” Remziye Tosun, also MP for the HDP reported.

The HDP officials reacted with a statement on Twitter, saying that the attack against Doğan’s funeral was similar to the recent attack on Palestinian journalist Şirin Ebu Akile’s funeral.