Catagory: Link

Gökkan was sentenced by the Diyarbakır 9th High Criminal Court for her alleged support of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Guerrillas who survived the Turkish chemical attack in Girê Sor, near the Turkish border, spoke about their experiences. According to the guerrillas, “International delegations can visit the tunnels and conduct research. There are still chemical traces.”

As members, friends, and observers of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, we note with grave concern that seven years since ISIS/Daesh began its campaign against the Yezidis, thousands of Yezidi women and children remain missing.

The 2014 attacks on Sinjar and the Ninevah Plains displaced thousands of people from their homes. ISIS/Daesh abducted thousands of others, forcing boys to become child soldiers and selling women and children into sexual slavery. The number of people they killed remains unknown, and discoveries of mass graves continue.

KOBANI, Syria (North Press) – On Wednesday, a Turkish drone targeted two civilian cars in the center of the city of Kobani, northern Syria, killing and wounding several people.

Eyewitnesses said that they heard a “strong” explosion from the Kobani Jadida neighborhood south of the city.

The drone attack resulted in the killing of two civilians and the injury of four others.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Saide Inac, a Kurdish singer better known by her stage name Hozan Cane, was sentenced in absentia by Turkey on Monday for her alleged support of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), German media reported.

Under the sentence, Cane will have to serve over three years in prison. She did not participate in her trial since she has been back in Germany since July after a Turkish court lifted her travel ban.

Turkish media have welcomed Kosovo’s decision to ban a musical event called “Freedom to Kurdistan”, planned to take place in Pristina on Friday, claiming it aimed to spread propaganda in favour of terrorist organizations that are at war with Turkey.

Kosovo police stopped the event, organized by Kosovo’s “Sabota Social Centre” on Friday, startling many who wondered about the true cause of such an action.

Police on Saturday said only that they had received information about an “unannounced activity” and that the organizers lacked proper permits.

They also said that they had information that unnamed individuals might try to cause an incident during the event “that could result in consequences”.

Police confirmed they brought in two people for questioning after one of them was found with a knife while the other one failed to show an ID.

Footage showing members of Turkey’s mercenary “national army” executing Kurdish captives as they led the Turkish invasion of northern Syria touched off a national outrage, provoking US government officials, pundits and major politicians to rage against their brutality.

In the Washington Post, a US official condemned the militias as a “crazy and unreliable.” Another official called them “thugs and bandits and pirates that should be wiped off the face of the earth.” Meanwhile, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the scene as a “sickening horror,” blaming President Donald Trump exclusively for the atrocities.

Rich Outzen, known in Ankara as “Eniste” – brother-in-law – because of his Turkish wife, is spearheading Washington’s efforts to

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – According to a report released earlier this week by a human rights organization, at least 877 civilians throughout 2020 were arrested by Turkish-backed militias and Turkish intelligence in the Afrin region of northern Syria.

This comes despite promises by the Syrian opposition to investigate and stop abuses by Turkish-backed groups in areas occupied by Turkey and its proxy militias, such as Afrin, Tal Abyad, and Ras al-Ain (Serekaniye).

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A new report issued on Tuesday by the United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria suggests that Turkish-backed groups in the embattled Middle Eastern nation have “committed torture, cruel treatment and outrages upon personal dignity, including rape and other forms of sexual violence, which constitute war crimes.”

It stated that the Turkish-supported Syrian National Army (SNA) continues to unlawfully arrest Kurdish citizens in areas under their control in northern Syria such as in Tal Abyad, Afrin, and Ras al-Ain (Serekaniye).

Jailed and Wanted Journalists in Turkey- Updated List

VAN, TURKEY/WASHINGTON —
Eighteen journalists, nearly all of whom work for Kurdish media outlets, stood trial at hearings across Turkey this week.

Lawyers and media rights groups say the trials show how Turkey’s laws on terrorism and protests can be used to detain or harass journalists.

This report documents the arrests of 21 persons, one of whom died under torture, in Ras al-Ayn/Serê Kaniyê and Tal Abyad, as well as the arrest of 31 people, including women and children, in Afrin

The human rights organization “STJ registered the release of only 7 detainees, while the remaining 45 continue to be unaccounted for, including the women and children.”

A chemical weapons expert in Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime that gassed 100,000 people has been living in Britain for more than a decade.

The Iraqi scientist, a former brigadier general, claimed refugee status after arriving on a work visa.

Home Secretary Priti Patel tried to have him kicked out – but he was allowed to stay after insisting he faced execution if he had quit his role.

Judges ruled the man can only be referred to by the initials ASA.

He took his case to the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber and it ruled in his favour in July, a decision highlighted today by the Sunday Mirror.

While the world is busy with COVID-19, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime is actively engaged with its pan-Islamic and nationalistic ambitions in eliminating the most “disloyal” segments of the Kurdish population.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A senior US official from the state department visited Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani in Erbil on Thursday, ensuring that Washington will encourage American companies to invest in the Region through a government-funded institution.

DUBAI, Sept 8 (Reuters) – United Arab Emirates energy firm Dana Gas (DANA.AD) said on Wednesday a consortium it co-leads had secured $250 million in financing from the U.S. development agency to fund an expansion of gas production at the Khor Mor plant in Iraqi Kurdistan.

“Turkey has not allowed any media, legal institutions, and human rights organizations to enter the city and document the crimes and daily atrocities.”

TURKISH war planes have bombed a Kurdish village in Iraqi Kurdistan with chemical weapons, local officials told the Morning Star, demanding that war-crime investigations be opened.

The Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has opened a new wheat marketing center in Erbil, a year after announcing the project.

Refugees accuse soldiers of ethnic cleansing as some 200,000 displaced

UN report is based on 538 witness interviews, documents, satellite imagery, photographs and videos relating to events away from the major battle zones during the first half of this year, Peter Stubley writes

A former British Army soldier has been charged with terror offences for allegedly planning to join Kurdish fighters in Syria.

Since Turkey took control of Afrin in 2018, the city’s Syrian Kurds face arbitrary detentions, torture, sexual violations, property theft, extrajudicial killing, and gender-based violence.

“If we don’t have more terrorism in the UK or in France, it’s thanks to these young ladies [female Peshmerga fighters] & Peshmerga of Iraqi Kurdistan – we should thank them, instead we betrayed them” French philosopher & writer @BHL discusses his new book & film “The Will to See”

Gazprom Neft has published an electronic version of “The Kurds: Legends of the East”. This book, published at the company’s initiative, is the world’s first fully-fledged encyclopaedia dedicated to highlighting the history and culture of the Kurds.

Gazprom Neft has published an electronic version of “The Kurds: Legends of the East”. This book, published at the company’s initiative, is the world’s first fully-fledged encyclopaedia dedicated to highlighting the history and culture of the Kurds.

Shot in the Northern part of Iraqi Kurdistan, close to ISIS-controlled areas, this film takes viewers into a true archeological El dorado largely unknown and captured on film here for the first time.

Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Turkey: The Alevi faith, principles, beliefs, rituals and practices (1995-2005), 7 April 2005, TUR43515.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/42df61b320.html [accessed 2 October 2021]

Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji was born in 1878 in Sulayimaniyah, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. During the British occupation of Iraq following the First World War, Sheikh Mahmud was appointed governor of Sulaymaniyah. The Kurds, however, were afraid of Britain ruling them indirectly by Arabs in Baghdad, and Sheikh Mahmud used his position to promote Kurdish independence and rebelled against the British in 1920. The uprising ended when Sheikh Mahmud was injured and he was arrested and sent to India. Britain took direct control over the Kurdish region after the rebellion, which became hostile for Britain. Turkish threats had Britain worried about the security of the north and in an effort to stabilize the region, they brought Sheikh Mahmud back to rule Kurdistan region. Sheikh Mahmud declared himself the king of Kurdistan, rejecting Britain’s Anglo-Iraqi arrangement. In 1923, Britain withdrew the offer of an independent Kurdish state and any say in Iraqi government. Sheikh Mahmud was king until 1924, when he was once again arrested and exiled, this time to Baghdad. He died October 9, 1956, remembered by Kurds as a leader to who resisted the British Mandate in Iraq.

Turkish authorities have dismissed nearly 28,000 teachers and suspended almost 9,500 others over alleged links to terrorism, a deputy prime minister said on Monday, pursuing a security crackdown followed a failed coup in July.

Turkey’s crackdown on Kurdish language schools has forced students and educators to take their courses underground.

On December 17, 2004, the European Union (E.U.) decided that Turkey should
continue to the next stage of its application to join the union by setting a date for the
start of formal negotiations for full membership. An impressive track record of human
rights reforms—including the abolition of the death penalty, new protections against
torture, greater freedom of expression, and increased respect for minorities—prompted
the positive decision. Unfortunately the reforms did not help the 378,335 people who
were internally displaced in Turkey during the 1990s.

Mehmet Gurkan, a Kurdish muhtar (headman) from the village of Akcayurt, Diyarbakir province, has not been seen since he was detained by security forces on 18 August 1994. It is believed his detention relates to statements he made to the press in which he alleged that he and many others were tortured while held in a containment area set up at Topcular gendarmerie post after the security forces had burned out his village.

C On May 10, 1994, a Jandarma non-commissioned officer threw three suspected PKK guerrillas to their deaths from a helicopter flying near the town of Kulp, located in Diyarbak2r province. The guerrillas had been captured, interrogated and tortured. A fourth prisoner who witnessed the incident said he survived by promising to provide his captors with crucial information. (Case 8).

Kurds are the largest minority group in Turkey and their position is one of conflict with the ‘Turkishness Contract,’ a concept that describes the unspoken convention ensuring the ethnic privilege of Sunni-Turks and the exclusion or assimilation of those who resist Turkification. Kurds have thus experienced oppression since late Ottoman times and throughout the Republican years, up to the present day. This article suggests that the Kurdish media in Turkey have always had to negotiate state oppression by articulating a strategy of resistance to the hegemonic knowledge imposed by the state and reproduced by the mainstream media. They thus reject the Turkification that would be required to abide by the Turkishness Contract. This article’s investigation of the Kurdish media takes place through an exploration of an online news platform, a self-proclaimed ‘voice of the weak.’ The data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with journalists and editors of the platform.

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.

New video from ultra-racist Turkish nationalist group Ataman Kardeşliği in which a member beats a Syrian refugee with a stick.

Video warns refugees to “leave our country, or we’ll bury you in it,” then calls on the youth of Turkey to “shed the blood of ethnic occupiers.”

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.

The Turkish government must take immediate steps to abolish the system of village guards, which has given rise to some of the most serious human rights violations in southeast Turkey, and continues to present an obstacle to the return of displaced villagers in that area.

The Turkish government, security forces and paramilitaries are obstructing the return of hundreds of thousands of displaced villagers to their homes in the formerly war-torn southeast. This 78-page report documents the plight of mainly Kurdish villagers forced to flee their villages in southeastern Turkey during the 15-year conflict waged between the illegal, armed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkish government forces. Estimates of the number of displaced people range from 380,000 to 1,000,000, most of whom were forced out of their homes by Turkish security forces and paramilitary village guards determined to deprive the PKK of access to food, shelter and recruits. Human Rights Watch interviewed dozens of displaced villagers who longed to return home and escape cramped and impoverished lives in unfamiliar urban surroundings. But although active hostilities ceased in 1999, it appears that no more than ten percent have ventured home. Human Rights Watch identified a range of factors blocking return, from inadequate government assistance to continued violence by Turkish security forces and their paramilitaries. Human Rights Watch called on the Turkish government to engage with relevant international and nongovernmental organizations to develop and finance a new comprehensive return plan in line with international standards.

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.