In the latter half of the 1970s, Turkey suffered from political violence between far-left and far-right militant groups, which culminated in the military coup of 1980. The Kurdistan Workers' Party - a.k.a PKK - (designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States, the European Union and NATO) was founded in 1978 by a group of Kurdish militants led by Abdullah Öcalan, seeking the foundation of an independent Kurdish state based on Marxist-Leninist ideology. The initial reason given by the PKK for this was the oppression of Kurds in Turkey. A full-scale insurgency began in 1984, when the PKK announced a Kurdish uprising. Following the arrest and imprisonment of Abdullah Öcalan in 1999, the PKK modified its demands into equal rights for ethnic Kurds and provincial autonomy within Turkey. Since the conflict began, more than 40,000 people have died, most of whom were Turkish Kurds. The European Court of Human Rights and other international human rights organisations have condemned Turkey for human rights abuses. Many judgments are related to cases such as civilian deaths in aerial bombardments, torturing, forced displacements, destroyed villages, arbitrary arrests, murdered and disappeared Kurdish journalists, activists and politicians.