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Actors at Kurdish centre targeted for police raid

By Liz Fekete

1 October 1996

Armed police raided a Kurdish community centre in north London after a concerned resident spotted a group of armed and uniformed men entering the building.

But the police operation, which included the deployment of a helicopter and the use of police marksmen, was later exposed to ridicule when it transpired that the community centre was being used for a rehearsal of Mountain Languages, a play by Harold Pinter, which focuses on the persecution of people who choose to speak their own dialect. In fact, the community group had informed the police several days beforehand that rehearsals for the play were to be undertaken at the centre. But somewhere along the line this had been forgotten.

Guardian 21.6.96

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