On 31 July 2018, New York Times published an article written by Carlotta Gall on the Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (HDP) former co-chair Selahattin Demirtas, who was arrested on terror charges in November 2016.

The article includes a factual mistake about the people who lost their lives during clashes  in which the PKK declared “self-government zones” in the cities by setting up barricades and digging trenches in roads. In response, the security forces conducted almost a yearlong operation in these districts to reestablish the law and order.

The article says: “A United Nations report estimates that around 2,000 people were killed in that period, many of them civilian.” However, even the UN report it referred to mentioned that around 800 of those 2000 people who lost their lives were Turkish security personnel.

According to official data, between the dates of 7 July 2015 and 27 Mart 2016, 3,583 terrorists who were part of the PKK and its urban youth branch YDG-H were killed. 355 security personnel and 285 civilians trapped in the urban zones occupied by the PKK also lost their lives.