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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
Turkey’s invasion into northern Syria has caused a demographic shift that many fear will become permanent, reports Richard Hall
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.
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.
Belgium’s Court of Cessation ruled on Wednesday that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is not a terrorist organization, ending proceedings launched in 2008 against a number of individuals and institutions linked to the group.
The British parliament on Tuesday debated the UK’s listing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as a terrorist organization and called for action on Ankara’s policies towards its Kurdish population and opposition voices.
Turkish Justice Ministry has dismissed a parliamentary question on the release of a rapist soldier for being “offensive.” Uca in her question asked Justice Minister Abdülhamit Gül to reveal the reason for why former specialized sergeant Musa Orhan was released despite raping İpek Er. The ministry said that the question can be accepted if the terms found “crude and offensive” are removed.
The number of inmates with university degrees in Turkey increased more than twofold between 2016 and 2020, reaching 20,333, EuroNews Turkish reported, citing data released by Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).
The number of inmates with university degrees in Turkey increased more than twofold between 2016 and 2020, reaching 20,333, according to the data released by Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported, citing EuroNews Turkish service.
A Turkish police officer who previously received an award for catching drug dealers in the southern province of Adana was apprehended with 25 kilograms of heroin, Demirören News Agency reported on Oct. 31.
Turkish actress Ezgi Mola became the subject of a lawsuit for tweeting in protest of a court’s ruling for the release of Musa Orhan, a sergeant who stood trial for the sexual assault of a young woman who killed herself. Mola is facing insult charges for calling Orhan a rapist.
A specialized sergeant was apprehended with 42.1 kilograms of marijuana in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır, Demirören News Agency reported on Nov. 1.
A shop owner has been taken into custody for using the word “Kurdistan” to describe the region he lives in during an exchange with the leader of a nationalist party in the southeastern province of Siirt, according to a police statement, Turkish Minute reported on Friday.
An armoured vehicle belonging to the Turkish Armed Forces ran over five-year-old N.D. in the southeastern Şanlıurfa province on Wednesday, Mezopotamya Agency reported.
A young man of Kurdish ethnicity was stabbed to death by a group of nationalists in İstanbul’s Kağıthane district on Monday night, and his relatives have claimed the attack was racially motivated, the Evrensel daily reported.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Turkish police detained a Kurdish tradesman on Friday after he referred to his city as part of “Kurdistan” during an argument with a nationalist politician. He is accused of making propaganda for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The murder of a 20-year-old Kurdish man in Ankara has launched a wave of accusations of discrimination in Turkey over the mistreatment of the ethnic minority.
A 20-year-old Kurdish man was allegedly killed in Ankara on Sunday by three men for listening to Kurdish music.
The death of a young Kurdish man in Turkey’s capital Ankara for allegedly listening to Kurdish music has fanned outrage in the country, producing calls for the government to address ethnically-based hate crimes.