The Metropolitan Police in London have agreed to pay £55,000 in damages to 11 Kurds arrested by armed officers while they rehearsed a Harold Pinter play about the treatment of their compatriots in Turkey, solicitors said yesterday.
Police smashed down the doors of a community centre in Harringay after being told that armed men in combat gear were pointing guns at people sitting on the floor. The refugees were ordered out of the centre, handcuffed and ordered not to speak to each other in Kurdish while they sat in a police van, according to legal papers.
It later emerged that they were only acting out Pinter's Mountain Language, first performed in 1988 and inspired by the plight of the Kurds in Turkey. The short play includes scenes of torture by armed men. The actors had borrowed guns from the National Theatre and had told local police what they were doing.
Some of the 11 arrested Kurds suffered posttraumatic stress disorder after dozens of officers and a police helicopter arrived at the centre in June 1996.
The playwright, who supported the Kurds in their battle for damages, said in a statement submitted to lawyers: "The play Mountain Language is essentially about people who are not allowed to speak their own language and are persecuted for doing so.
"I was horrified to learn that the Kurds, who had been assaulted, handcuffed, arrested and generally badly treated, were forbidden to speak to each other in their own language even though this is the only language they know."