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.
A Kurdish man was stabbed to death by three Turkish men near Turkey’s capital Ankara because he was listening to Kurdish music, according to a media report.
A Kurdish teenager was killed in the country’s northwestern province of Sakarya on Monday following what witnesses have called a racially motivated attack, left-wing newspaper Evrensel reported.
Turkey was marked by four racist attacks on Kurdish families and workers over just two weeks, prompting outrage on the part of rights defender groups and civil society. The Human Rights Association (İHD) said in an official statement that these attacks were a result of the spread of discriminatory rhetoric in the country, while 15 bar associations described these attacks as “irreversible acts.”
Sixteen Kurdish seasonal farm laborers were attacked on September 4 by a farm owner and a group of villagers in Turkey’s northwestern province of Sakarya in an incident that appears to have been caused by anti-Kurdish sentiment, Turkish media reported.
The pressure on Kurds in Turkey to not speak their own language is a reflection of a general intolerance towards the Kurdish population, said Birca Belek Language and Culture Association Co-chair Mirza Roni.
A series of apparent hate crimes against Kurds took place in Turkey this week as a group of seasonal workers were attacked in Afyon province on Monday and a Kurdish family was attacked in Konya on Wednesday.
A 96-year-old woman is being forced to travel more than 500 kilometers from her home to receive treatment as part of judicial measures imposed on her by a court on the grounds that she insulted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Mezopotamya news agency reported.
The congenial and well-liked Conservative Party member of the British parliament, Sir David Amess, who was murdered on Friday, was active on two issues related to the Middle East.
While concerns of a terrorist resurgence in Afghanistan are front and center, we need to remember that there are thousands of ISIS fighters waging a low-level insurgency in Iraq and Syria. Containing that threat is critical, and doing so over the long term requires an international relations moonshot: creating an independent Kurdish state.
Turkey has resumed cutting down trees in Duhok province months after they suspended the practice, according to local sources. Villagers have threatened to protest at Turkish military bases if the deforestation continues.
Four years ago today, President Masoud Barzani defied the international community, Baghdad and neighbors and remained steadfast that Kurds must exercise their very basic right to determine their future.
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The official US commission charged with monitoring global religious rights and freedoms has expressed concerns on Saturday over Turkish threats to launch yet another operation against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
A number of attacks on Turkish patrols in northern Syria have brought Turkey and YPG forces to the brink of war. In response to the latest attack, which saw the death of one Turkish soldier, President Erdogan vowed to clear northern Syria from the YPG. [1] In order to achieve this, YPG (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel – People’s Protection Units, itself the primary faction in the Syrian Democratic Forces alliance) forces would either have to leave the border region voluntarily or take up arms and fight the Free Syrian Army and Turkish military. In the latter case, the YPG’s armour is undoubtedly set to play a role as the faction’s primary fire-support platforms. This article attempts to catalogue the YPG’s fleet of AFVs and other heavy weaponry and explain how its armoured force came to be.
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – China’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Geng Shuang, called Turkey’s operations in northeast Syria illegal and criticized Ankara for cutting water supplies from that country’s Alouk water station on Wednesday.
China’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Geng Shuang, called Turkey’s operations in northeast Syria illegal. “Since Turkey illegally invaded northeastern Syria, it has repeatedly cut off the water supply service from the Alouk water station,” he said.
Turkish-occupied Afrin. Member of the local Turkish-backed city council attacks a 65 year-old civilian on the street.
Jailed Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş may be released on parole by the court on November 3, Turkish officials said in the action plan they submitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
All-female militias in Syria have again swelled in numbers in recent years with many women joining the call to arms despite the risks
In-depth: Prompted by the release of a report by a group of British MPs, the debate comes as the crackdown on activists and politicians intensifies in the run-up to Turkey’s next elections.
The Syrian Kurdish forces in control of areas bordering Turkey in the north and east of Syria were the original proponents of a safe zone in the border regions and have welcomed negotiations on the issue, Mazloum Kobani, the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), told the SDF-linked Hawar News Agency.
The Democratic Alevi Associations (DAD), HDP, EMEP, the Amed Branch of the Alevi Bektashi Federation ‘Pir Sultan’, the Socialist Councils Federation (SMF), Federation of Dersim Associations (DEDEF), the Federation of European Dersim Democratic Union (ADEF) organized a tribute to Seyit Rıza in Dersim, Seyit Rıza Square. Seyit Rıza had been hanged at 19.38 of 4 May.
On 24 April 2021 Turkey launched another military invasion in northern Iraq, an area controlled by Kurds. The invasion, which is apparently still in progress, is reported to involve chemical attacks. The use of chemical weapons is a war crime and a breach of international law. Chemical weapons qualify as weapons of mass destruction.
According to international media reports, the invasion and the chemical attacks have forced Kurdish civilians to flee their villages. There is also a risk that civilians could be injured or killed. These attacks breach international law and bring to mind Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria, which led to an occupation.
Iraq had not given Turkey authorisation for its troops to enter the country. Iraq’s foreign minister, Fuad Hussein, has said that Turkish forces entered the country illegally, in violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.
In the light of the foregoing, I should like to ask the European External Action Service (EEAS) the following questions:
1. Is the EEAS aware of these reports?
2. Is the EEAS intending to condemn Turkey’s military invasion of northern Iraq and use of chemical weapons, and will the EEAS be taking further action against Turkey bilaterally and within the EU?
3. How is the EEAS intending to counter Turkey’s attack on Kurdish parts of Iraq?
DEMONSTRATIONS took place outside the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) today, demanding action against Turkey over its five-month bombing of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Ankara is accused of using chemical weapons during the military operations, which have been condemned as a breach of international law and of Iraq’s national sovereignty.
Speaking at a rally outside the UN offices in Geneva, Democratic Kurdish Community Centre co-chair Berivan Avci implored the international community to stop turning a blind eye to Turkish war crimes.
Footage sent exclusively to the Morning Star purported to show the aftermath of a chemical attack, which officials said took place in the Avashin region of the mountainous Duhok province on May 3.
The General Council of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) considered all parties that provide Turkey with modern means of war as partners in their crimes against humanity, the latest of which is today against civilians in Kobani. The party called on the people home and abroad to express their rejection of such crimes, by the democratic means.
German Left Party, MP, Gökay Akbulut said the German government should cancel all agreements with the Turkish state that uses banned chemical weapons against the Kurdish people, adding that “countries that supply weapons to the Turkish state are complicit in genocidal attacks.”
TURKISH jets continued to pound Kurdish villages in Qandil and other parts of Iraqi Kurdistan today, amid growing demands for investigations over its alleged use of chemical weapons.
Missiles struck a number of villages in simultaneous attacks at around 10.30am local time, according to eyewitnesses, although no casualties were reported.
Salih Kado said that the occupying powers of Kurdistan agree to exterminate the Kurds because their economic and political interests are intertwined. He stressed that Turkey’s use of chemical weapons is part of the failed policy and a reaction to the defeat.
Secretary-General of the Syrian Kurdish Left Party, Saleh Kado
Kurdistan National Conference (KNK) condemned the Turkish occupying state ‘s use of chemical weapons against the Kurdish people and called upon the international community to take firm decision about the crimes that committed against the Kurds.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is looking into the possible use of chemical weapons in the conflict in northeastern Syria. The Kurdish Red Crescent has raised concerns about civilians being affected by chemical weapons in the conflict between Turkish and Turkish-backed forces and Kurdish led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Crowds in the northwestern Syrian town of Tel Rifaat protested for the second day on Saturday against Turkish threats to launch a military offensive in the region, various local media reported.
A classical dictum cited by Clausewitz, the father of war studies as an academic discipline, tells us that starting a war is often easy while ending it is always difficult. Does that dictum apply to the war that Turkey has started against the Kurds by invading Syria? Right now, the answer is that no one knows. What is certain, however, is that the best outcome that Turkey might expect, is to be extricated from that hornet’s nest with a minimum of damage.
Editor’s Note: Turkey’s historic failure to find democratic solutions to Kurdish ethnic demands has created a deeply insecure and chronically irrational Turkish political culture, precipitated the end of the U.S.-Turkish strategic partnership, and pushed Ankara to work with Moscow, writes Ömer Taşpınar. This piece was originally in Responsible Statecraft.
Once used in the hunt for fugitive criminals, the global police agency’s most-wanted ‘red notice’ list now includes political refugees and dissidents