A Yazidi woman who was kidnapped aged 11 in Iraq by the Islamic State group and subsequently taken to Gaza has been rescued after more than a decade in captivity there, officials from Israel, the US and Iraq said.
When I arrived in the UK in 2017, I hoped to return to Turkey sooner or later.
But I was in trouble with the Turkish Government for reporting and sharing news on social media.
As a journalist, flying to the UK was a desperate decision to avoid arrest, prosecution, war and all the nightmares temporarily.
Shortly after arriving here, I woke up one day to the news in the media that my flat in Istanbul was raided by the police.
It was a hard day for me to accept that I had no choice but to claim asylum.
Growing up in Turkey as a Kurdish girl was very difficult.
Girls in my village did not have a proper childhood. Instead, they had to struggle for their rights. You have to fight for everything, and it becomes your default strategy to survive.
Being the curious child that I was, I used to sit in the garden and think about life – the ongoing conflicts we witnessed (including schools being shut down and curfews enforced), gender inequality, chaos – and tried to imagine a normal life beyond the borders of my village.
In my head, I was trying to make sense of why these things happened to us. Why every day we were surrounded with sad news – such as people going missing, conflicts, and tensions everywhere.
Then I began to see the differences and understood the rules that discriminated against me. When I turned seven, I was excited to go to school like other children. It broke my heart to learn that I could not go because of the conflict.
Turkey’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the rights of the former co-chairwoman of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) were violated in connection with the 2017 stripping of her parliamentary seat on terror charges, Duvar news site reported on Saturday.
Sixten journalists who were detained in the predominantly Kurdish province of Diyarbakır during last week’s police raids were remanded in custody early today (June 16).
The police search in the offices of two production companies as part of an investigation into Kurdish media outlets has been completed 32 days after 16 journalists were detained during raids. The [Turkish] police reportedly seized computers, hard drives, cameras, microphones and other equipment.
Members of the fascist group Greywolves have attacked a group of university students for listening to Kurdish music and performing the traditional halay folk dance in the southern province of Karaman. HDP MP Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu has brought the issue to parliament’s agenda, while the Diyarbakır Bar Association demanded an effective investigation.
Hüdai Morsümbül, the 23-year-old teacher, was exiled from his school.
Well-known figures from around the world celebrated the 73rd birthday of Abdullah Öcalan, whom they describe as “one of the greatest political thinkers of our time”, and demanded his freedom.
Kurds are at risk of genocide by the regional powers of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria, all of which have sizable Kurdish minority populations. Currently the largest threat comes from Turkey. On January 20, 2018 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan launched cross-border military operations into northwestern Syria with the code name “Operation Olive Branch,” The mission aimed to oust Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (or YPG) from the district of Afrin. Turkey considers the YPG to be an extension of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency within Turkey on and off since 1984 in the name of greater rights and regional autonomy. The YPG denies being an extension of the PKK and has been allied with the United States (among other countries) in the fight against the Islamic State/Da’esh since 2014.
Gregory Stanton, the chairman of Genocide Watch, sits down with Rudaw in April 2018 to discuss a warning issued by the Washington, D.C.-based organization regarding Kurds in all four parts.
During the 19th century, travelers around the world were writing home about the beautiful and luxurious Kurdish rugs they’d encountered. Usually woven by Kurdish women on long, narrow looms, the rugs were notable for their intricate patterns and deep, rich colors. The travelers were also intrigued by the various motifs and designs in the carpets and the striking and artful way the weavers integrated the motifs and borders into the overall design.
The Iraqi Kurdish Ministry of Peshmerga issued a sharp rebuke of Turkey’s defence minister after he flatly denied the existence of Kurdistan, Kurdish-outlet Rudaw English reported on Sunday.
In a Facebook post, the Peshmerga ministry wrote that Hulusi Akars comments were “surprising” given his high rank within the Turkish government and his experience with Iraqi Kurdistan in particular where Turkey has good relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil, Iraq.
The Istanbul Public Prosecutors’ Office has issued an indictment against a Kurdish religious association in the city over alleged ties to an outlawed group, Kurdish news outlet Rudaw English reported on Saturday.
Russia’s cooperation with the Kurds of Iraq and Syria in the fight against ISIL has been widely publicized by the Western media. However, less well-known is the fact that Russia’s relations with various Kurdish groups date back almost two centuries.
A Kurdish man was detained after he called Turkey’s southeast “Kurdistan” during a conversation with Mustafa Sarıgül, the leader of the Party for Change in Turkey.
Kurdistan does not exist in or outside of Turkey, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said, news website Duvar reported on Tuesday.
The defence chief’s comments came in response to opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Deputy Tülay Hatimoğulları mentioned during budget hearings recent allegations that Turkey’s armed forces were using chemical weapons in the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.
Mehdî Mêhvane 2 – Xeleka 8 | مەهدی مێهڤانە ٢ – خەلەکا ٨
#Dersim #Dersimê #Kurdistan #Xarpet #Elih #batman #kurtalan #Misircê #Kürdilan #Kurdilan #Ağrı #HDP #DBP #iyiparti #CemilTaşkesen #Rojava #tezkere #hayır #bitlis
Imprisoned for over five years, former HDP Co-Chair Demirtaş has called on the new government to be formed in Germany to show more interest in human rights in Turkey, noting that they should not see Turkey as limited to President Erdoğan.
Başak Demirtaş and her doctor sentenced over ‘falsified’ medical report on her miscarriage
Ciwan Haco – Qamişlo 1992 Live (Official Concert Video)
RIC’s newest periodic report, appearing once every quarter, tracks human rights violations and crimes by Turkey and Turkish-backed SNA groups in the occupied regions of Afrin and the ‘M4 Strip’ – the border region between the occupied cities of Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad. The RIC team:
Adiabene refers to an old pre-Islamic Kurdish[1] Kingdom which was southeastern neighbor of Corduene. The Kingdom, first occupied the area between Upper and Lower Zab (= Great and Little Zab), later also the regions, which were mainly bordering on the north. Its capital and most significant city was Arbil.
Mehmet Eymür, a former senior official at MİT, openly spoke about how a crime boss was used in an armed operation in Germany to target the PKK, how the agency had failed to assassinate Abdullah Öcalan in Syria, and how torture has always been a legitimate method used in interrogating political prisoners.
Kutum’s lawyer Mehmet Emin Aktar tweeted that his client was released after appeal at the 2nd Elazig High Criminal Court, where he was charged.
A Kurdish academic named Hifzullah Kutum was suspended from Fırat University in Turkey’s eastern Elazığ province for a post on social media in which he said “Long live Kurdistan” accompanied by a picture of Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, Duvar English reported on Friday.
Hifzullah Kutum (@hifzullah_kutum) tweeting celebrating – September 14, 2021
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A Kurdish academic has recieved a warning from his university in Turkey after making an online post celebrating a revolution of Kurds against the Iraqi government in the sixties.
Soldiers beat up elderly people in a village in the Ömeryan district of Mardin last week. Abdurrahman Din (73) said he was kicked even after falling to the ground.
An academic from Fırat University was first suspended and then arrested for writing the word ‘Kurdistan’ on Twitter
Kurdish fighters who died during the clashes with the Turkish Army are buried in the cemetery of the unknown without their families being informed
Link to Twitter hashtag #StandwiththeKurds
Turkey’s invasion into northern Syria has caused a demographic shift that many fear will become permanent, reports Richard Hall
Link to Twitter hashtag #NoFlyZone4Rojava
Date filter:
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23NoFlyZone4Rojava%20until%3A2018-03-11
Sami Tunca, a journalist sentenced to a total of 70 years in prison, sent a letter from prison saying, ‘journalism is the most dangerous profession in Turkey.’
Weeks have passed since the Turkish invasion of northern Syria. Since then, the implications have been steadily acknowledged for both the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), since Turkey is a member of the latter and a strategic partner of the former.
Israel has been a strategic supporter of the Kurds for many decades, even speaking out on the ethnic group’s behalf after the recent Turkish incursion into Syria. Now, though, some Kurds are saying actions speak louder than words
Afrin violations: Imam fired from job for criticizing Turkish-backed factions’ looting and blackmail
Aleppo Province – Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: SOHR activists reported that armed members of the Turkish-backed faction “Ahfad Al-Rasul” that is in control of Ba’danli village of Raju township in the countryside of Afrin city, discharged the Imam of the village’s mosque.
ARK News: A Human Rights Organization working to document violations in the Kurdish region of Afrin reported on its main page of Facebook today, 14.02.2020, that armed members of the Turkish-backed faction “Ahfad Al-Rasul” that is in control of Badina village of Rajo township in the countryside of Afrin city, discharged the Imam of the village’s mosque.
BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian fighters vowed to kill “pigs” and “infidels,” paraded their Kurdish captives in front of cameras and, in one graphic video, fired several rounds into a man lying on the side of a highway with his hands bound behind his back.
Turkish-backed Syrian rebels who seized the northern Syrian city of Afrin from a Kurdish militia on Sunday have been looting properties, reports say.
A UK-based monitoring group said shops and military and government facilities had been raided.
A rebel commander blamed “thieves” for the looting and said a unit had been set up to prevent further incidents.
The government of Turkey is accused of harvesting olives in Syria’s Afrin and selling them to the European Union (EU) countries.
In Switzerland, Conservative Democratic Party MP Bernhard Guhl has brought the topic into the parliamentary agenda, the Fox News reported.
According to the Olive Oil Times, Afrin Agricultural Council Deputy Chair Saleh Ibo said that Turkey has produced at least 5,000 tons of olive oil with the olives it took from Afrin area.
“They have also been confiscating the fields and olive groves of people who have had to flee Afrin due to the Turkish state violence in the months since the invasion,” Ibo added.
When Turkey launched a military offensive in northern Syria last January and called it Operation Olive Branch, many dismissed the name as part of a propaganda campaign.
Turkey said it wanted to rid the region of the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units. It has long fought Kurdish insurgents at home and views the fighters in Syria as part of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey.
One year on, it appears the name of the operation has also taken on a more literal meaning.
(Beirut) – Turkey-backed armed groups in the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have seized, looted, and destroyed property of Kurdish civilians in the Afrin district of northern Syria, Human Rights Watch said today. The anti-government armed groups have installed fighters and their families in residents’ homes and destroyed and looted civilian properties without compensating the owners.
AFRIN, Syria (Reuters) – A day after Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies seized control of Afrin, a Turkish aid group started distributing relief supplies in the town center on Monday, but residents continued to leave after widespread reports of looting.
A court in Munich sentenced a German woman to 10 years in prison for the crime against humanity of letting a Yazidi child die of thirst in Mosul.
The demographic changes targeting the Kurdish residents of Syria’s Afrin city are a “disaster,” the Russian ambassador to Iraq told Rudaw last week. Turkey-backed groups have been accused of replacing Kurds with Arabs and Turkmens there.
Kurdish political parties and language promotion institutions have launched a campaign, calling on the Turkish government to recognize Kurdish as an official language in the country.
A top Turkish court on Friday upheld a two-and-a-half year jail sentence for a parliamentarian from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) accused of making propaganda for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The outspoken lawmaker recently revealed the controversial use of strip searches in Turkish prisons.
A UK cross-party parliamentary group has called on the government to “rethink” its relations with Turkey, and its definition of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as a terrorist organisation, in a recently released report detailing ongoing Turkish violations against Kurds at home and abroad.