On September 11, 2020, two Kurdish farmers, Servet Turgut and Osman Şiban, were thrown from a Turkish military helicopter in the southeastern province of Van, Turkey. Turgut died from his injuries on September 30th, and Turkish authorities implausibly claimed that he’d fallen from a high rock formation while trying to escape arrest by the Turkish Jandarma.
A factory in Turkey’s Trabzon province was raided by Turkish nationalists for producing hats for a Kurdish alliance taking part in the Iraqi elections, local media outlets reported on Thursday. The hats were set ablaze in the middle of the street.
In what must be one of the most tightly controlled towns in the world, it was perhaps understandable that a young man in the billiards parlor wanted to talk only about the weather.
As a fragrant breeze from the mountains brought an end to a glorious spring day, the man said quietly, ”Weather is very bad here.”
Pressed for an explanation, he said, ”We speak with our eyes.”
At a cafe around the corner, an older man said: ”You can see us, but you can’t hear us. Our lips are sealed.” At that moment, two plainclothes police officers sat down at the table, and all conversation ceased.
Tens of thousands, often under heavy state pressure, accepted the Kalashnikovs and started fighting against their own people
Jiyan Timurtas, a Kurd from Turkey, volunteered as a Peshmerga and took part in the US-backed battles against the Islamic State.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Turkish troops in the Kurdish province of Bingol on Thursday destroyed the grave of a Peshmerga volunteer, Sait Curukkaya, who was killed during the Kurdish-Iraqi offensive to capture the then Islamic State (IS)-held city of Mosul last year.
Mustafa Ozcelik, the leader of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), a small pro-Kurdish faction in Turkey, confirmed the reports during a telephone interview with Kurdistan 24.
Racist remarks including ‘Speak Turkish or shut up’ were written on the stairs of a school in the Onur neighbourhood, in the southern Turkish city of Adana where mainly Kurds live.
The Democratic Society Congress (DTK) said on the occasion of the anniversary of Dersim Genocide: “The Dersim Massacre is one of the bloodiest stages of the genocide and assimilation policies that started with the establishment of the nation state.
The minor girl (Malik Nabi Khalil Jumaa) returned to her home in the village of Darwish in occupied Afrin’s Shera, more than a year after her disappearance, to reveal the truth of her kidnapping by Turkey’s mercenaries, and after some digital media pages circulated pictures of a murdered girl who looked like her was thrown in Shera’s agricultural land.”
Seventeen people, including a brigadier general, were killed and many homes and businesses were set on fire in the Kurdish-majority province of Diyarbakır in 1993.
KHANKE CAMP, Kurdistan Region — Sipan Khalil buries her face in the shoulder of a relative as they hold each other tight, smiling through tears. After seven years in Islamic State (ISIS) captivity, Sipan is finally safe, in the loving embrace of her family.
On August 3, 2014, ISIS militants took over the Shingal district of northern Iraq, committing genocide against the Yazidi minority. Thousands fled their homes as the militants systematically killed men and older women, and enslaved younger women and children. In the first days of the genocide, 1,293 people were killed and 6,417 people were abducted.
Today, 2,760 Yazidis are still missing, according to statistics from the NGO Joint Help for Kurdistan. Many are believed to be held by ISIS fighters and families who melted back into their former lives when their so-called caliphate fell or are detained in camps in northeast Syria (Rojava).
Recently, two women were rescued.
Sipan was 15 when she was captured. This week, her seven-year-long nightmare ended and she was reunited with her family.
“There was food deprivation and torture. We used to be locked in rooms and beaten up. Our condition was similar to that of the dead. There was no life at all, as if we were dead,” she said.
The militants called her Baqiyah – Arabic for eternity. She understands Kurdish, but can no longer speak it. She and her relatives chat and laugh as they do her nails and her hair.
In 2019, when ISIS was defeated in their last Syrian stronghold of Baghouz, Sipan’s captor took her with him when he hid, first to the nearby town of Hajin, Deir ez-Zor province, and then to Daraa in southern Syria. Three months ago, he tried to take Sipan across the border to Lebanon, but he was killed during the journey. She said there was an explosion.
After he was dead, Sipan was finally able to make contact with her family.
“She contacted us two months ago. She’d got our phone number. We then were trying to find her with the Yazidi House. The Yazidi House went to Daraa and did the paperwork to bring her back,” said Sipan’s brother Bahjat Khalil.
Yazidi House is an aid organization based in Rojava. Working with Rojava security forces, they have rescued 410 Yazidi women.
“Shingal women and their children can be found in all parts of Syria. Last week, we rescued a woman in the Daraa area,” said Farouq Tozo, co-chair of Yazidi House.
In their house in Hasaka is Zere Mito Shivan, another woman who was recently rescued. The 25-year-old was found two weeks ago in a village, in Deir ez-Zor province.
After ISIS was defeated in Baghouz, Zere’s captor took her and his family to his home village Chihail. The village was under control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led force allied with the US-led global coalition against ISIS. She was close to freedom, but lived there imprisoned for two years with no access to a phone.
“We’ve actually seen a lot of miseries. We used to be imprisoned. We were beaten up if we disobeyed them. They used to beat us with their hands, cables, sticks and iron sticks. They used to hit our heads against the walls. It was very painful,” she said.
She was rescued in a raid by Kurdish security forces on July 19 and is now waiting to return to her family in Shingal.
Sipan and her family were reunited on Tuesday in Khanke camp, Duhok where some of her relatives are living. Thousands of Yazidis are still living in camps, unable to return to their homes because of lack of reconstruction, services, and security.
All 12 members of Sipan’s family were abducted or missing under ISIS. Her father and brother are still unaccounted for and her mother and four siblings have moved to Germany.
“We are now back, thanks be to God. I’ve now started a new chapter in my life. Now that I can stand on my own, I’m so happy. Even though I’m surrounded by my family, I cannot celebrate this happiness because my father and brother are still missing,” she said.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), of which Turkey is a member, has passed a resolution referring the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputies jailed in Turkey as “political prisoners,” Turkish Minute reported on Tuesday, citing Deutsche Welle Turkish service.
Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Parliamentary Group Deputy Chair Meral Danış-Beştaş has filed a parliamentary question on the release of three ISIS members who were arrested for kidnapping and trying to sell an Ezidi child.
Former co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Figen Yüksekdağ, who has been in prison since November 2016 on terrorism-related charges, was escorted to her father’s funeral by the gendarmerie yesterday, Turkish media reported.
The HDP has said that its MYK member Serhat Aktemur was abducted in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır by individuals claiming to be National Intelligence Organization (MİT) members. Aktemur said that the three individuals in question threatened to kill him by saying, “If we see you around, we’ll shoot you.”
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) member and businessman Kamil Acar was abducted by masked gunmen in Diyarbakır province on Thursday night according to eyewitnesses, a party statement said on Thursday.
Celalettin Yalçın, a member of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), was abducted and subjected to torture by individuals who introduced themselves as “the police” in İstanbul, Turkish Minute reported, citing the Mezopotamya news agency.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A journalist covering the murder of a Kurdish family in Turkey’s central Konya province has been targeted by a pro-Turkish government media outlet, the Coalition for Women in Journalism (CFWIJ) said on Thursday.
Berna Kisin, a reporter for the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya Agency (MA), was targeted by Memleket newspaper with allegations that she wrote a pro-terrorist story following her coverage of the assassination of seven members of a Kurdish family last week, which has been labeled by many as a racist attack.
Seven members of the Dedeoglu family, who lived in the Meram district of Konya, were killed on Friday evening. Their house was subsequently set on fire. The main suspect of the murder was arrested on Wednesday.
Memleket newspaper claims that Kisin encouraged conflict through a “simple security incident,” adding that Kisin was “lying” about the location of the village where the crime took place.
On Thursday the CWIJ condemned the targeting of Kisin, adding that Memelekt “also alleged that the journalist organized a smear campaign about the horrific incident.”
“Journalists are obliged to inform the public and Berna has fulfilled her journalistic responsibilities. Targeting someone can cause severe consequences for journalists,” it said, urging Turkish authorities to “take security measures” and ensure journalists’ safety.
On Saturday, Kesin tweeted that reporters who were trying to cover the murder of the Dedeoglu family were blocked by force. “The front of the hospital is under siege. Who are you protecting?” she said.
Memleket also claimed that MA turned the murders into “racist propaganda” in a campaign to smear the province.
There is a long history of animosity and conflict over Kurdish issues and rights in Turkey. The state has at times denied the very existence of Kurds. The word “Kurdistan” is banned from the parliament, most Kurdish private media is closed, and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) is under immense pressure with hundreds of its members in jail. An armed Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has waged a decades-long conflict with the state.
One person was killed after a Kurdish family was attacked in Konya on July 21.
Turkish authorities arrested three people in connection with what was also described as a “racist attack” in Mersin against a Kurdish family from Erbil in mid-May.
Bans on Kurdish cultural events or activities are not rare in Turkey. The outlawing of the Kurdish-language play “Beru” has been condemned as the latest attack on Kurdish culture.
“It all happened very quickly,” said Kurdish director Nazmi Karaman. The police suddenly appeared outside the theater and everyone was forced to leave, he said.
“The play has been performed in Turkey for three years now. The authorities never had a problem with it before, but suddenly they appear to have changed their mind,” the director complained. Shortly before “Beru,” which translates as “Faceless,” was due to be performed for the first time in Istanbul’s municipal theater, it was banned by the administrator of Istanbul’s Gaziosmanpasa district for “disturbing public order.”
The two-act play, due to be performed by the Kurdish theater group Teatra Jiyana Nu, is an adaptation of a satirical play by Italian writer Dario Fo. Almost 4,000 people had already seen the play performed in the last three years, both in Turkey and abroad, but it would have been the first Kurdish-language performance in the 106-year history of Istanbul’s municipal theater. Director Nazmi Karaman believes that its staging would have sent an important signal to Turkish Kurds and Turkish society at large.
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After the on-going discussion with opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu about the “Dersim incidents”, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan apologized for what happened during “one of the most painful and most tragic events in recent [Turkish] history”, as he put it.
The so-called “Dersim Massacre” refers to the violent suppression in 1937/38 of the local population of Dersim, now called Tunceli Province (eastern Anatolia). Some sources speak of tens of thousands of Alevi Kurds and Zazas that were killed and thousands more that were forced into exile.
Erdoğan’s speech at the Extended Meeting with Provincial Chairs of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) was based on four documents quoted by the PM.
“I apologize”
The second document dated 8 August 1939 was sent by the Gendarmerie General Command to the premiership high prefecture. In included a record of how many people died, survived and were forced to relocate.
Erdoğan quoted, “It is stated in this document that a total of 13,806 people were killed in 1936, 1937, 1938 and 1939. The signature underneath is very interesting. Faik Öztrak. The Minister of the Interior.”
The CHP was the ruling party at the time. Erdoğan addressed Kılıçdaroğlu as the present party chair and asked if he was going to apologize.
“If we have to apologize on behalf of the state and given that such literature exists, I apologize”, Erdoğan announced.
Apology from CHP Provincial Chairman
Subsequent to Erdoğan’s speech, the CHP Provincial Chairman of Diyarbakır (Kurdish-majority province in south-eastern Turkey), Muzaffer Değer, followed the prime minister’s calling and apologized for the incidents that happened in Dersim at the time.
CHP Faction Deputy Chair Hamzaçebi and Deputy Party Chair Tekin on the other hand criticized Erdoğan’s statement.
“We have to face our past”
Değer said in an interview with bianet that people from all over Turkey called him after his statement to express their appreciation and to congratulate him.
“We have to face the past if we made a mistake. If the CHP made a mistake in these incidents, the CHP has to apologize. We cannot face our past without revealing the naked truth”, Değer remarked.
Negative reaction of the CHP
On the other hand, also negative reactions in answer to Erdoğan’s speech were voiced in the ranks of the CHP. CHP Faction Deputy Chair Akif Hamzaçebi criticized that in the prime minister’s eyes all insurgents became victims. He blamed Erdoğan of making “cheap” politics.
In Hamzaçebi’s opinion, Erdoğan created separatism by spilling enmity, hate and anger. He added that the prime minister declared war to the republic.
CHP Deputy Chairman Gürsel Tekin said in a written statement, “I congratulate the prime minister. With his language, style and statement he put dynamite into the foundation of the unity of our country. He managed to pave the way to make everybody enemies and turn against each other. (…) What is left to say? What is the prime minister’s next step? What is the ultimate goal of this campaign?” Tekin questioned. (IC/EKN)
TURKEY: Turkey’s powerful security forces are at the centre of a growing scandal as evidence grows that a fatal explosion in the remote Kurdish town of Semdinli was the work of their own men.
The bomb which killed a shopper in a bookshop on Wednesday was the 16th to go off in Turkey’s most southeasterly province in the last two months.
As they had for the others, the authorities at first blamed the blast on the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which renewed its 20-year guerrilla war against Turkey last year.
This time, though, locals caught the suspected bomber as he attempted to get into a car and drive off. Only prompt police intervention saved him and two other men with him from a lynching.
A search of the car revealed that the three men were members of Turkey’s feared military police intelligence, or Jitem. As well as identity cards, investigators also found machine guns, a map with the location of the bookshop outlined in red, and a list of local notables.
“The bombing was the work of people who stand to gain from a return to war,” said bookshop owner Sefer Yilmaz, voicing a belief widespread among Kurds that the PKK’s new campaign is the work of anti-democratic forces in the Turkish state.
“It is clear some elements are trying to stir things up here, and the state must ensure they fail,” added local MP Esat Canan, a member of Turkey’s chief opposition party.
The bombing, he added, was “worse than Susurluk”. He was referring to the 1996 scandal that first revealed links between Turkey’s intelligence services and the criminal underworld.
Of the three people killed in a car crash that night, one was a Jitem officer, another a notorious ultra right-wing gangster carrying two diplomatic passports signed by the interior minister.
In a documentary released this spring, a former Jitem operative claimed that 80 per cent of the 600 unsolved assassinations carried out in southeastern Turkey between 1990 and 1996 were the work of his organisation.
A parliamentary investigation into Susurluk fizzled out in 1997 after senior military and civilian leaders signalled they would not co-operate.
There is a risk the same thing could happen in Semdinli, where the investigation into the bombing remains shrouded in secrecy.
While the suspected bomber remains in custody, the other two men were released on Thursday after they told investigators their presence in the town centre was a coincidence. The news enraged locals, who barricaded the road leading into Semdinli and set fire to a police checkpoint.
Security forces responded by opening fire, killing one man and seriously injuring two others.
Protests spread yesterday to other towns in the mainly Kurdish southeast.
But Turkey has changed since 1996, one of the darkest years of the PKK war.
With half an eye on the European Union, which awarded the country candidate status in October, politicians from all parties show signs of taking the Semdinli affair very seriously.
“Those responsible for this will pay the price, no matter who they are,” Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan promised yesterday.
He added that a team of investigators from the interior ministry would be joining two delegations of MPs already in Semdinli.
COLOGNE, Germany — A Kurdish-German singer returned to Germany this week after being jailed in Turkey on terror charges.
“I am thrilled to have returned. As a mother, I am very happy to have seen my children,” Saide Inac, better known by her stage name Hozan Cane, told Rudaw’s Alla Shaly on Thursday on her arrival in Cologne where family and friends greeted her at the airport.
“I left many of my friends behind. I hope they too will enjoy freedom. They have suffered much more than I did. They are all innocent. They are political prisoners. I want them to see freedom. I want the Kurds to see freedom,” she said.
Cane was arrested in June 2018. The singer had gone to Turkey to support the election campaign of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). She was charged with alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group fighting for greater rights for Kurds in Turkey but deemed a terrorist organization by Ankara.
She was sentenced to six years and three months in jail, but released from jail in October 2020 on condition she remain in the country while a court case against her continued.
Her travel ban was lifted this week, allowing her to return to Germany.
In Cologne, she said she wants to see the international community work to free political prisoners held in Turkey.
“Turkey’s prisons are so dire. There is systematic torture,” she said. “I hope Europe and the whole world react to reach out to the jailed people. They are in need of assistance from every single human being.”
In its 2020 human rights report on Turkey, the US Department of State expressed concern about detention of political prisoners and abuse in prison. In Turkey “government agents engaged in threats, mistreatment, and possible torture of some persons while in custody. Human rights groups asserted that individuals with alleged affiliation with the PKK or the Gulen movement were more likely to be subjected to mistreatment or abuse,” the report stated.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — One person was killed after a Kurdish family was attacked in Konya in central Turkey on Wednesday, a local media outlet has reported.
Around 60 people attacked the family, according to Mezopotamya Agency (MA), shooting at the car they were in. It described the incident as a “racist attack.”
The family, originally from the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir (Amed) has been living in Konya’s Meram district for twenty years.
Hakim Dal, a 43-year-old male member of the family, was killed in the attack, according to MA.
“They didn’t want us because we are Kurds. They told us ‘you will sell this place and leave,’” his brother Hamdi Dal told the news outlet.
An eyewitness claimed that family had been attacked in the past.
“There have been at least three attempts to attack the family before,” Mohammed Emin told MA, adding that the village chief was “provoking” locals to hurt the family.
Turkish authorities arrested three people in connection with what was described as a “racist attack” in Mersin against a Kurdish family from Erbil in mid-May.
Many Kurds from the Kurdistan Region holiday and do business in Turkey. Erbil and Ankara enjoy good economic relations, with the Kurdistan Region exporting oil to international markets through its northern neighbor and Duhok’s Ibrahim Khalil border crossing connecting Turkey to Iraq.
The attack drew ire and was condemned by Kurdish and Turkish officials.
Kurds used to make up 96 percent of Afrin’s population but now represent only 25 percent, over two dozen organizations said in a letter they cosigned to call on the UN and major powers to “end the Turkish occupation” of the area.
Turkey’s powerful security forces are at the centre of a growing scandal as evidence grows that a fatal explosion in the remote Kurdish town of Semdinli was the work of their own men.
The bomb which killed a shopper in a bookshop on Wednesday was the 16th to go off in Turkey’s most southeasterly province in the last two months.
As they had for the others, the authorities at first blamed the blast on the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which renewed its 20-year guerrilla war against Turkey last year.
The former Van Gendarmerie General Staff Colonel of Van, Vecihi Halil İyigün, stands accused of having executed two members of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and one civilian in the course of an operation in the Çaldıran district of Van (south-eastern Anatolia) although the three men had surrendered already.
A Turkish special forces officer has been arrested for the January 15 death of a 12-year-old Kurdish boy during demonstrations in the town of Cizre in southeastern Turkey, the Dogan News Agency (DHA) reported.
It said the police officer, identified only by the initials M.N.G., was arrested in Ankara for the shooting death of Nihat Kazanhan, who local witnesses have said was killed as police teams were traveling through predominantly-Kurdish Cizre during unrest in the town.
The suspect was arrested after another police officer, who had been detained for the shooting, confessed that his colleague M.N.G. had done the shooting and testified to a cover-up.
ISTANBUL – U.S.-based Human Rights Watch has accused Ankara of blocking international scrutiny over what it calls widespread human rights violations by Turkish security forces in its crackdown on Kurdish rebels.
The Human Rights Watch report focused on fighting between Turkish security forces and Kurdish rebels in Cizre. The town is a center of Kurdish nationalism that has witnessed some of the most intense fighting since last year’s collapse of a peace process with the Kurdish rebel group the PKK.
Human Rights Watch report author Emma Sinclair Webb alleges security forces are covering up abuses.
“There are a huge number of civilians who have been killed during security operations. And there is almost no sign of an investigation into these deaths, and there is an attempt to cover up. We were prevented from visiting families who had lost relatives during the security operations,” she said.
Serious allegations have been made about the deaths of civilians at the hands of Turkish security forces in the overwhelmingly Kurdish town of Cizre in south-eastern Turkey earlier this year.
Local people say Turkish security forces killed up to 160 civilians in the town, according to statements made to the BBC and human rights groups.
The worst single incident ended with the deaths of around 100 people who had been sheltering in three cellars.
The UN human rights chief has expressed his concern in unusually strong terms and wants to send in investigators.
BEIRUT (Reuters) – A Turkish offensive in northeast Syria has killed 218 civilians, including 18 children since it started a week ago, the Kurdish-led administration in the region said on Thursday
The fighting has also wounded more than 650 people, the statement from its health authority said.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—In 1993 and at the peak of daily confrontations between the Turkish military and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) nine members of a Kurdish family were burned to death inside their home in a village near Mus.
Hewlêr (Rûdaw) – Li bajarê Dêrsimê yê Bakurê Kurdistanê ku weke yek ji bajarên herî bedew ên Kurdistanê tê zanîn, bi kêmbûna ava bendavan û golan re, şûnûwarên dîrokî derketine ser erdê.
Li Geliyê Gemîciyê ya ser bi bajarokê Çemişgezeka Dêrsimê ya Bakurê Kurdistanê bi hatina biharê dîmenên bêhempa yên şûnwarên dîrokî, kultûrî û sirûştî derketin holê.
Di salên derbasbûyî de jî bi sed hezaran geştyaran berê xwe dan bajarê Dêrsimê û li nava xwezaya wî bajarî de digeriyan. Îsal jî ji ber qedexeyan û kêmbûna çûn û hatinê, piraniya navçeyên wê parêzgehê şîn bûne û dîmenên gelek balkêş derketine holê. Dêrsim ji bilî xweşikiya xwezayî, ji bo çendîn ajelan jî weke navçeyekî guncaw û aram e.
Bi kêmbûna ava gola bendava Kebanê li Gelî, Kenîseya Dirokî ya Miyadîn û şunwarên kevin ên di bin avê de mabûn, hatine xuyakirin. Dema dîmen bi hevre dibin yek, bi taybetî dema ku roj diçe ava, dîmenên çiya û teyisandina daristanê li ser avê ciwanî balê dikşîne.
Wênegir Malik Kaya dibêje: “Em dixwazin ciwaniya sirûştiya welatê xwe bo cîhanê bidin nasîn. Ne tenê Kinîseya Miyadînê, lê gelek cihên din jî hene ku gelekî hêjane û divê bên nûjenkirin. Em dixwazin ev cihên ciwan bo geştiyariyê bêne vekirin. Me gelek dîmenên ciwan û hêja girtine. Dema me ji bilindahiyê dîmenên gelî girtin, dîmen ne kêmî yên derya Ege û derya Spî ne.”
Geliyê Gemîcî di navbera çiyayê Kirklara ku li derdora gundê Alçilî ye,bi zêdebûna şînkayî û jiyana xwezayî balê dikşîne.
Welatî Fatih Karatepe jî got: “Ji ber ku ev der şûnwarekî kevn e her cor dar lê hene. Ez gelek caran derdikevim ser bilindahiya gelî, û li xweza û şînahiya Gola Bendava Kebanê temaşe dikim. Ez bi wî awayî aram dibim. Ev der ji ber Gola Bendava Kebanê hatiye ji bîrkirin. Lê ji ber niha av kêm bûye kinîse û cihên kevin têne xuyakirin. Kesên ku dikevin nav kinîsê qubbe, sitûnên dîrokî û çawahiya avakirina wan jî dibînin.”
Ligel ajelên ku neslê wan tên parastin wek werşek, hirçê gewr û pezkovî, û bi sedan corên çûkan jî li vir dijîn. Xwezaya ku bi darên behîv, tû, mazî û guhijan xemilî ye, wiha dike ev der zêdetir bala xelkê bikişîne. Ji ber vê yekî jî di her demê de ji bajar û bajarokên derdorê gelek kes ji bo temaşekirin û dîmengirtinê diçin wê derê.
TURKEY’S Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has demanded an official apology for the 1937 Dersim massacre and the establishment of a truth commission to heal the wounds of one of the bloodiest stains on the country’s history.
HDP MP Alican Onlu tabled a series of parliamentary questions today calling on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to restore the rights of the people of Dersim, in the largely Kurdish south-east.
He called for a truth & acknowledgement commission to open the archives and court records to the public and for the perpetrators of the massacre to be tried in absentia. Mr Onlu asked for May 4 to be officially recognised as Dersim massacre memorial day.
Measures must be taken to end to the forced assimilation policies that crushed the Kurdish language, beliefs and culture of the people of Dersim, which is known by the official Turkish state name of Tunceli, he said.
A decree signed in the Turkish parliament on May 4 1937 led to an onslaught by the army and the massacre of up to 70,000 people.
The massacre followed a rebellion led by Kurdish Alevi chieftain Seyid Riza against the Turkification policies of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish republic. Riza was hanged by the state in November 1937 and buried in an unknown location.
Witness statements describe the brutality inflicted on the people of Dersim, including chemical weapons dropped by the Turkish air force. Among the pilots was Ataturk’s adopted daughter Sabiha Gokcen, celebrated as the country’s first female flyer.
Thousands of residents were forced from their land and banished. Thousands of children, especially girls, were taken from their families and placed in orphanages or given to foster families across Turkey as part of an ethnic-cleansing operation.
The people of Dersim named the massacre Tertele, meaning big flood, destruction and extinction.
It is the greatest massacre committed in Turkey after the Armenian genocide. But there have been no lessons learned from the suffering and the incident remains one of Turkey’s darkest days.
Mr Erdogan offered an apology in 2011, but this was seen as an opportunist attempt to embarrass the People’s Republican Party, which was in power at the time.
The HDP demanded that the region be officially renamed Dersim from Tunceli, the name associated with the massacre, and the mass graves be uncovered, especially Riza’s resting place.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iraqi Kurds have always been a symbol of hope, Brett McGurk, the United States Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, told a virtual conference on Wednesday, recounting the resilience of Kurds in the face of persecution by the Iraqi regime in the early nineties.
“On behalf of President [Joe] Biden – who had such a long and personal history with Iraq and Kurdish people – I want to express my strong support for the enduring relationship with the Kurdistan Regional Government, and my gratitude for the Kurdish and American heroes who made Operation Provide Comfort possible,” McGurk said at the virtual conference hosted by the KRG’s representation in the US.
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Influential Kurdish writer, intellectual, and radio personality Kereme Seyad, who played an important role in preserving Kurdish culture for decades, succumbed to illness on Saturday at the age of 83 in the Armenian capital of Yerevan.
Young Kurd Kemal Kurkut was shot dead in 2017 in Diyarbakir and while his police officer killer will go unpunished, the photographer who documented the incident faces serious charges.
Turkish soldiers tortured two Kurdish villagers they had detained, throwing them from a helicopter after battering them, eyewitnesses claim.
Melek Çetinkaya, mother of Furkan Çetinkaya, one of the military cadets who were jailed on coup charges in the aftermath of a failed military coup in July 2016, has marched to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) headquartrs in Ankara in order to demand an end to her son’s 3-year-long imprisonment.
“For over a year, the Turkish army has illegally occupied the city and region of Afrin. This has particularly impacted the women of the region, with rape, kidnapping and gendered violence systematically used as weapons. The Turkish army and the jihadist militias they fund and support work together in these aims, and have forcibly imposed Sharia law on women of all different beliefs.” Kongra Star
Two weeks ago, fighters allied to the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the strongest local Kurdish group with its well-armed and effective militias, captured the town from Nusra fighters
A protester arrested for assaulting a police officer was found not guilty last week. A jury at Southwark Crown Court reached their verdict after watching damning police bodycam footage.
EXCLUSIVE: Joel David Moore and Rishi Bajaj’s Balcony 9 is teaming with Pop Front Pictures for Stefan vs. ISIS, a feature film that has script from C.C. Kilpatrick and Zack Stentz.
Main opposition CHP group deputy chair Engin Altay has referred to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “as the world’s most expensive president,” saying his presidential palace complex in Ankara’s Beştepe district costs the nation over 10 million liras ($1.3 million) per day. Altay also said that 110 vehicles and two helicopters escort Erdoğan on the 6 km route between the presidential palace and parliament building.
The Imrali Island prison, where Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, has been held in isolation for twenty-two years, accepts no visitors and the annual delegations never actually reach this island fortress. But the delegation’s visit to Turkey provides an opportunity for an international group to draw attention to the conditions faced by a political prisoner that many have called the Kurdish Mandela and find out about the state of human rights in Turkey more generally.