THE materials collected in the ensuing pages are the results of about 7,500 miles
of riding and innumerable conversations with policemen, nluleteers, mullahs,
chieftains, sheep drovers, horse dealers, carriers and other people capable of giving
one first hand information. The results I fear are extreinely meagre, but I hope
they may prove of use to future travellers.
As hardly anything has been written on the subject in the English language
heretofore, I have not been able to make a study of the Kurds from a bibliographical point of view. However, I trust that this will not detract from the
interest of the work. I may add that I had among my servants on my last journey
representatives from the three most important sections of the Kurds, so that I was
able to obtain interpreters without any great difficulty, a matter of some importance
amidst the conflicting dialects of the nomads and sedentary mountaineers.
In preparing the following list of the various tribes of the Kurdish race I have
endeavoured to simplify the work of future students by marking down and
cataloguing as many of the tribes as have come either directly or indirectly under
my notice.
After various abortive attempts at setting them down in a manner comprehensible to any one but myself, I have decided for the purposes of this work to
break up the regions inhabited by Kurds into six zones; to each of these zones a
section of the catalogue is devoted, each section containing a separate enumeration.
Thus in the alphabetical list a tribe will be found, as for instance the Merzigi 76B,
section A. To find the position of the tribe the reader must look in zone A on
the map for the number 76; he will find this number is connected to a chain of
letters; the letter B in this chain will mark the spot where this tribe is to be found,
in the catalogue he will find such particulars as I can supply under the number 76B
in the printed section A.
Before closing this preface may I say that the zones marked on the map are
not ethnological but merely a convenient form of grouping
The Genocide and Persecution series offers readers a multitude of perspectives, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of these complex and horrific periods in world history; each volume is an anthology of previously published materials on acts of geno; Title explores genocide and persecution of the Kurds, including the historical/cultural background of Kurdish persecution in Turkey and Iraqevents from the rise of the communist People’s Republic of China in 1949 to the present; issues surrounding events ; The histories of nations across the globe are marked by dark periods of mass murder, brutal repression, and unrelenting persecution. Remembering and understanding such incidents is vitally important. The Genocide and Persecution series offers students and
Source: Publisher
Human Rights Developments
The human rights situation in Turkey continued to deteriorate in 1994, in large part due to the government’s heavy-handed response to an escalation of the conflict in southeastern Turkey. The government restricted freedom of expression and association, especially of groups voicing opposition to government policy in the southeast or toward Turkey’s large Kurdish minority. Political freedom also was limited. In March 1994, the Turkish parliament lifted the parliamentary immunity of eight deputies, six of whom were deputies from the Kurdish-based Democracy Party (DEP). In June, Turkey’s Constitutional Court banned the Democracy Party and stripped immunity from the remainder of its deputies, though a new Kurdish-based party, the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HADEP), was formed in its place. Eventually eight parliamentarians whose immunity had been removed, seven from DEP and one independent, were charged with treason and separatism, allegedly for collaboration with the banned PKK, a violent guerrilla group. Torture in pre-trial police detention, death-squad style assassinations with alleged links to security forces, and violent police house raids in which alleged suspects are killed all continued in 1994.
United States Department of State, U.S. Department of State Country Report on Human Rights Practices 1995 – Turkey, 30 January 1996, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6aa7dc.html [accessed 8 September 2021]
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.
Summary, in English
Environmental destruction has long been used as a military strategy in times of conflict. A long-term example of environmental destruction in a conflict zone can be found in Dersim/Tunceli province, located in Eastern Turkey. In the last century, at least two military operations negatively impacted Dersim’s population and environment: 1937–38 and 1993–94. Both conflict and environmental destruction in the region continued after the 1990s. Particularly after July 2015, when the brief peace process that began in 2013 ended, conflict between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) resumed and questions arose about the cause of forest fires in Dersim. In this research we investigate whether there is a relationship between conflict and forest fires in Dersim. This is denied by the Turkish state but asserted by many Dersim residents, civil society groups, and political parties. We use a multi-disciplinary approach, combining methods of qualitative analysis of print media (newspapers), social media (Twitter), and local accounts, together with quantitative methods: remote sensing and spatial analysis. Interdisciplinary analysis combining quantitative datasets with in-depth, qualitative data allows a better understanding of the role of conflict in potentially exacerbating the frequency and severity of forest fires. Although we cannot determine the cause of the fires, the results of our statistical analysis suggest a significant relationship between fires and conflict in Dersim, indicating that the incidence of conflicts is generally correlated with the number of fires.
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.
When Koma Wetan was formed, singing in Kurdish was illegal in Turkey. Now, the group is a legendary influence among Turkish Kurdish rockers..
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.
In contemporary Turkey, discussions on the concept of ethnicity and religiosity continue to maintain their utmost importance in politics and daily social life. In this context, Alevi and Kurdish identities have come to the fore with mass representation marked by protests and violence. In spite of the importance of Kurds and Alevis for the history of Turkey, one specific group, namely the Kurdish Alevis, has escaped the attention of the international world. Although wide interest upon the topic in the international academic sphere, there are very limited academic works about Kurdish Alevis in general. Who are the Kurdish Alevis? What are the particular conditions for its association with the Kurdish identity, Alevi religion, and the history of Turkey? What has been the role of Dersim within Kurdish Alevism? The main purpose of this edited volume, the first of its kind, is to contribute to the understanding of these and other questions. Based on six perspectives from scholars from various disciplinary, this approach will present new insights on contemporary research and discussions on the issue.
–
Submitted to the Institute of Social Sciences
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Master of Arts
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.
This edited volume, comprising chapters by leading academics and experts, aims to clarify the complexity of Turkey’s Kurdish question. The Kurdish question is a long-standing, protracted issue, which gained regional and international significance largely in the last thirty years. The Kurdish people who represent the largest ethnic minority in the Middle East without a state have demanded autonomy and recognition since the post-World I wave of self-governance in the region, and their nationalist claims have further intensified since the end of the Cold War. The present volume first describes the evolution of Kurdish nationalism, its genesis during the late nineteenth century in the Ottoman Empire, and its legacy into the new Turkish republic. Second, the volume takes up the violent legacy of Kurdish nationalism and analyzes the conflict through the actions of the PKK, the militant pro-Kurdish organization which grew to be the most important actor in the process. Third, the volume deals with the international dimensions of the Kurdish question, as manifested in Turkey’s evolving relationships with Syria, Iraq, and Iran, the issue regarding the status of the Kurdish minorities in these countries, and the debate over the Kurdish problem in Western capitals.
Originally published in Paris in 1925 under the title La nuit Kurde. From the publisher’s archive.
DESCRIPTION
Octavo. Original black cloth, spine lettered in green. With dust jacket.
CONDITION
A superb copy in the slightly ragged jacket.
Turkey’s political history is littered with alarmingly numerous murders, ‘disappearances’ and unexplained deaths of investigative journalists, academics, officials, businessmen, and human rights and other activists of various kinds. A notable recent example was the murder of the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in January 2007. Death threats to prominent public figures such as the writer Orhan Pamuk, suspiciously-staged terrorist incidents, and unsolved violent attacks on the Alevi and other minorities can be added to this litany.1 Incidents such as these have convinced many Turks of the existence of a so-called ‘deep state’, assumed to be composed of an ultra-nationalistic, arch-Kemalist and authoritarian network of bureaucrats, lawyers, soldiers, policemen, criminals and the like. They are often drawn from, but acting in parallel to the state, immune to prosecution, acting against those judged to be in opposition to the official secularist, nationalist and authoritarian ideology of the Turkish Republic. The activities of the ‘deep state’ are often believed to spill over into criminal activity of various kinds.
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.
Human Rights Watch conducts regular, systematic investigations of human rights abuses in some seventy countries around the world. It addresses the human rights practices of governments of all political stripes, of all geopolitical alignments, and of all ethnic and religious persuasions. In internal wars it documents violations by both governments and rebel groups. Human Rights Watch defends freedom of thought and expression, due process and equal protection of the law; it documents and denounces murders, disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment, exile, censorship and other abuses of internationally recognized human rights.
Human Rights Watch began in 1978 with the founding of its Helsinki division. Today, it includes five divisions covering Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, as well as the signatories of the Helsinki accords. It also includes five collaborative projects on arms transfers, children’s rights, free expression, prison conditions, and women’s rights. It maintains offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, London, Brussels, Moscow, Dushanbe, Rio de Janeiro, and Hong Kong. Human Rights Watch is an independent, nongovernmental organization, supported by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide. It accepts no government funds, directly or indirectly.
The staff includes Kenneth Roth, executive director; Cynthia Brown, program director; Holly J. Burkhalter, advocacy director; Robert Kimzey, publications director; Jeri Laber, special advisor; Gara LaMarche, associate director; Lotte Leicht, Brussels office director; Juan Méndez, general counsel; Susan Osnos, communications director; Jemera Rone, counsel; Joanna Weschler, United Nations representative; and Derrick Wong, finance and administration director.
The regional directors of Human Rights Watch are Peter Takirambudde, Africa; José Miguel Vivanco, Americas; Sidney Jones, Asia; Holly Cartner, Helsinki; and Christopher E. George, Middle East. The project directors are Joost R. Hiltermann, Arms Project; Lois Whitman, Children’s Rights Project; Gara LaMarche, Free Expression Project; and Dorothy Q. Thomas, Women’s Rights Project.
The members of the board of directors are Robert L. Bernstein, chair; Adrian W. DeWind, vice chair; Roland Algrant, Lisa Anderson, Peter D. Bell, Alice L. Brown, William Carmichael, Dorothy Cullman, Irene Diamond, Edith Everett, Jonathan Fanton, Jack Greenberg, Alice H. Henkin, Harold Hongju Koh, Jeh Johnson, Stephen L. Kass, Marina Pinto Kaufman, Alexander MacGregor, Josh Mailman, Andrew Nathan, Jane Olson, Peter Osnos, Kathleen Peratis, Bruce Rabb, Orville Schell, Sid Sheinberg, Gary G. Sick, Malcolm Smith, Nahid Toubia, Maureen White, and Rosalind C. Whitehead.
The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday issued a landmark ruling on one of the many incidents of killings and disappearances of Kurdish civilians by Turkish government forces in the early 1990s at the height of the conflict with the armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). During that period the army forcibly evacuated and burned thousands of villages, in some cases killing villagers through shelling or aerial bombardment.
The European Court held Turkey responsible for the deaths of 33 people, including women and children, in an airforce bombing raid on the villages of Kuşkonar and Koçağılı on March 26, 1994.
In 1995 Human Rights Watch documented the bombing, which was the subject of an official cover-up, in a report on Turkey’s violations of the laws of war in the southeast in the early 1990s. Human Rights Watch talked to some witnesses of that attack again for a report last year on the importance of securing justice for victims of state-perpetrated killings and disappearances.
In its ruling on Tuesday, the European Court ordered Turkey to pay €2.3 million in damages because of its violations of the right to life and inadequate investigation into the deaths, and took an important and unusual further step, ruling that Turkey should now conduct a full domestic investigation into the case, “with a view to identifying and punishing those responsible.”
This ruling sends a message that there is an obligation under international law for Turkey to ensure justice for the victims and their families, even 20 years later.
But there are wider implications, and for more recent cases. One is the December 28, 2011 Turkish bombing that killed 34 Kurdish civilian men and boys at the Iraqi Kurdistan border as they attempted to return to their villages in the Uludere district of Şırnak, carrying smuggled goods.
Two years on, the case file has been passed from one prosecutor to another, and some families of victims have been fined for illegally crossing the border that night.
The Turkish government should read Tuesday’s ruling as a reminder that while embarking on important investigations into past abuses, it should show similar commitment to properly investigate allegations of human rights violations on its own watch. The European Court has made clear that this isn’t just a choice, but an obligation.
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.
Kurdish civilians, including women, children and elderly residents, have been killed during security operations and armed clashes since July 2015 in southeastern Turkey. Local human rights groups have recorded well over 100 civilian deaths and multiple injuries. After unprecedented military deployments to the region in recent days, several cities are under curfew and some of their neighborhoods the scenes of shelling by the military and heavy clashes with armed Kurdish groups. The civilian death toll is likely to rise steeply in the coming days.
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.
The United Nations wants to send investigators to examine allegations that Turkish forces massacred around 100 civilians in the Kurdish town of Cizre.
It relates to an operation carried out against the PKK, armed Kurdish separatists classified by the EU and the US as terrorists.
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.
Turkish military forces and a coalition of Turkey-backed Syrian armed groups have displayed a shameful disregard for civilian life, carrying out serious violations and war crimes, including summary killings and unlawful attacks that have killed and injured civilians, during the offensive into northeast Syria, said Amnesty International today.
The organization gathered witness testimony between 12 and 16 October from 17 people including medical and rescue workers, displaced civilians, journalists, local and international humanitarian workers, as well as analyzing and verifying video footage and reviewing medical reports and other documentation.
The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday issued a landmark ruling on one of the many incidents of killings and disappearances of Kurdish civilians by Turkish government forces in the early 1990s at the height of the conflict with the armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). During that period the army forcibly evacuated and burned thousands of villages, in some cases killing villagers through shelling or aerial bombardment.
Constitutional Court has handed down its ruling regarding the bombing of Kuşkonar and Koçağılı villages in Şırnak 26 years ago. The Court has unanimously concluded that the right to life of 38 deceased people, the wounded and their relatives was violated.
Turkey’s modern history has been marked by impunity for serious human rights abuses highlighted by the state’s systematic failure to hold to account members of the security forces and other public officials for serious violations in the decades following the September 1980 military coup.
In the 1990s, during the armed conflict between the Turkish military and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), government military and security forces compelled hundreds of thousands of people to abandon their villages, and carried out enforced disappearances and killings of thousands of civilians. Affected were mainly Kurds in Turkey’s southeastern and eastern provinces. The PKK also committed grave human rights abuses in the course of the conflict. According to official estimates, by 2008 the armed struggle between the military and the PKK had resulted in an estimated 44,000 deaths of military personnel, PKK members, and civilians.
Despite two parliamentary inquiries in the 1990s into the state’s collusion in political assassinations and involvement in lawless activities, no-one in the Turkish state was held accountable during this period for the pattern of gross human rights violations committed by the military and security services. A handful of prosecutions in the domestic courts resulted in the conviction of low level members of the security forces and police, who received nominal, low sentences. But there was no attempt to probe higher level involvement of state officials or to examine whether the violations were a matter of state policy.
There were positive indications of change in 2009, however, when a remarkable trial began in the southeastern city of Diyarbakır of a gendarmerie officer, retired colonel Cemal Temizöz, three former PKK members turned informers, and three members of the “village guard” (local paramilitary forces armed and directed by the gendarmerie). The prosecution accused the defendants of working as a criminal gang involved in the killing and disappearance of twenty people in and around the Cizre district of Şırnak province between 1993 and 1995.
These twenty killings were just a tiny fraction of thousands of unresolved killings and enforced disappearances that took place in the area in this period, as well as many more in other provinces of the region and in some of Turkey’s largest cities. Nonetheless after years of impunity, the investigation and prosecution of these cases marked a significant milestone. Temizöz is the most senior member of the Turkish military ever to stand trial specifically for gross violations of human rights committed in the course of the conflict between the Turkish armed forces and the PKK.
The trial, which started in September 2009, offers an opportunity to examine the obstacles to securing accountability in Turkey’s domestic courts for state-perpetrated killings and disappearances in the mainly Kurdish-populated southeast of the country in the first half of the 1990s. In January 2012, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe described the trial as “a unique opportunity to shed light on a period of systematic human rights abuses in south-east Turkey, which feature prominently in the case-law of the ECtHR [European Court of Human Rights].”
This report examines some of the lessons the Temizöz trial provides about the current obstacles to effective investigation and prosecution of past abuses and highlights some of the reforms required to allow the effective criminal investigation of the hundreds and possibly thousands of similar cases. The report recommends further steps the Turkish government needs to take to combat impunity in Turkey.
Lessons of the Temizöz Trial
The Temizöz trial highlights obstacles to securing justice for victims of human rights abuses in the region in seven key areas:
Limited scope of investigation: The prosecutor failed to explore possible chain of command involvement in the killings beyond Cemal Temizöz, for example by investigating the command responsibility for the alleged crimes among the higher ranking officers in the region.
Non application of witness protection: While Turkish courts have widely used orders to conceal the identity of witnesses in organized crime and terrorism trials, there has so far been little application of the Witness Protection Law in trials relating to crimes committed by the security forces. Application of the Witness Protection Law in the Temizöz trial could have significantly increased the willingness of vulnerable witnesses to participate.
Witnesses retracting their statements: The Temizöz trial has demonstrated how witnesses called to testify because of their “insider” knowledge are liable to retract the initial witness statements they made before prosecutors when they appear before the court. Such witnesses include village guards, former PKK members turned informer, or military personnel and police.
Attempts to intimidate and direct witnesses: Clear evidence emerged in the course of the trial of attempts to interfere with witnesses.
Threats to lawyers: A striking aspect of the trial has been the threatening and insulting behavior in court of defendants towards some of the lawyers acting for the families of the victims. Judges in the case have failed to respond adequately to such behavior.
Length of proceedings: Since the Temizöz trial began in September 2009 there have been 36 hearings (up to June 22, 2012). The excessive duration of trials in Turkey is a long-standing concern. Long trials often lead to excessively prolonged detention for defendants pending verdict, and violations of the right to a fair trial. But lengthy proceedings also have serious implications for witnesses and their protection.
The village guard system: The continued existence of the village guards system by which civilian villagers are armed and paid by the state to join military and counter-terrorism operations alongside the regular security forces is a further social obstacle to efforts to secure accountability for the killings and enforced disappearances and other egregious violations of human rights in the southeast and eastern provinces of Turkey. The fact of some of the defendants in the Temizöz trial are village guards—in effect an irregular army operating within the local society—has contributed to the continuing fear of witnesses and families of victims.
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.
The Dersim region, overwhelmingly populated by Alevi Kurds, resisted the centralization policies of the Ottoman Empire for many decades. While the Alevi Kurds wanted to continue their indigenous cultural and political autonomy, this was considered a threat to the sovereignty of the newly established Turkish Republic (1923). Seyit Riza was one of the most prominent figures in the region, not only as the leader of the Hesenan tribe; he was also seen as a religious figure by the Alevi Kurds in Dersim. In 1937-38, the Turkish military started two major military operations targeting the Dersim region, with the aim of breaking the armed resistance organized by local militias. Gross human rights violations took place in Dersim during these military operations. Although the exact number is still unknown, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that state documents indicate 13,806 people were killed in the campaign. In January 1937, Seyit Riza sent his son to Aptullah Alpdogan (the commander of a military division in the region governed by emergency law) to find a way to end the armed clashes and mass killings. But Riza’s son was killed, and clashes continued relentlessly. At the end of the year, after Alpdogan promised to spare his life, Riza turned himself in to prevent further killings. We know what happened to Riza through the testimony of Ihsan Sabri, a state official who witnessed his execution (Çaglayangil later became Minister of Foreign Affairs). A quick trial was held, and the verdict read to Riza; he could not understand it, as he was unable to speak Turkish. Riza was sentenced to death and executed immediately.
Military operations did not stop or lose momentum and gross human rights violations continued, including aerial bombardment. Ultimately, the remaining Alevi Kurds were forced to migrate to the western regions of Turkey. Since the archives of the Turkish military are not yet accessible, it is not known what happened to Seyit Riza’s body or where he was buried. Therefore, Seyit Riza’s grandchildren have demanded to be told where his body was taken or buried. Discussions about the Dersim massacre intensified in the mainstream media after a speech by Onur Oymen, a deputy for the Republican People’s Party, in the National Assembly in 2009 in which he called the state policy of killings in Dersim “legitimate.” Since then, Riza’s grandchildren have become more vocal in their demands. But there has been no legal resolution to the questions surrounding his death as yet, and military officials have remained silent.
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.
On May 4, 1937 the government-in-power, Republican People’s Party (CHP), launched the “Punitive Expedition [Operation] to Dersim [Tunceli]” which marked the beginning of Dersim massacres and gave rise to regional operations that later transitioned into extermination operations in 1938.
In his chronicles, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, İhsan Sabri Çağlayangil, has recorded that “[the ‘pundits’] had taken shelter in the caves. The militia used poisonous gas. They poisoned [these pundits] like rats in their caves. They slaughtered Dersim Kurds from all ages. It [the operation] was a bloodshed. So the Dersim issue was done with, the government authority was brought to the village [the east] and to Dersim. Now we can enter Dersim conveniently.”
Tens of thousands of people from all ages were massacred as a result of the several operations that took place between the years 1937 and 1938. Thousands were forced out of and banished from their lands. Likewise, thousands of children, especially girls, were taken from their families and placed into orphanages and given to foster families across Turkey to rid them off their roots as part of a cleansing initiative.
Adopted on 9 December 1948, the United Nations Resolution 260 (III) A, of which Turkey is a signatory nation, states that: “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
According to the definition set by the aforementioned resolution, the systematically carried out 1937-1938 Dersim massacres against the Kurdish population and the people of Qizilbash (Alevi) religion constitutes an act of genocide. On its 76th anniversary, the victims’ agony persists.
In 2011, Prime Minister Erdoğan stated that, “If there is an apology on behalf of the state and if there is such an opportunity, I can do it and I am apologizing” and left the issue hanging as that point. The Prime Minister has to prove that he was not using the Dersim massacre just as a political tool against the main-opposition.
The pressing demands of the people of Dersim are unequivocal: the city’s name “Dersim” has to be restored to replace “Tunceli”, a name closely identified with the massacre. The government should disclose the burial grounds of the executed rebellious leaders, including that of Seyit Rıza, compensate for the loses of the banished people of Dersim, reveal the truth behind the banished missing children and declassify the military archives. Both the AKP government and the state should fulfill what an apology entails.
It is imperative to confront the truth behind the Dersim Massacre [Dersim Tertelesi in local Kirmanckî] for the construction of societal peace. As Peoples’ Democratic Party, we mourn the thousands that were massacred on the 76th anniversary of the massacre. We call upon the governing party and opposition parties that still carry remnants of similar racist practices today to confront the truth and our history.
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.
The city of Dersim plays an important role in the Kurdish collective memory. Dersim, now the eastern Turkish province of Tunceli, was the scene of mass murders between 1937-38 by the Turkish army in which between 20,000 and 30,000 Kurds died.
The massacres are commemorated on November 15 each year. On that day in 1937, the Kurdish leader Seyit Rıza and some of his followers, who had opposed the Turkish government, were hanged.
In a two-part series, a number of experts provide insights into key questions about the massacres, as more information and evidence has come to light in recent years.
“Fifteen years ago, we couldn’t say many things with certainty, now we can. It was not only about the destruction of one’s own Dersim culture, but also about the destruction of human lives. It was the intention to kill many Kurds. It is also striking that some Turkish dignitaries who played a key role in the mass killings in Dersim were involved in the Armenian Genocide in 1915,” he said.
In the breathtakingly rugged Turkish province of Hakkari, pristine rivers surge through spectacular mountain gorges and partridges feed beneath tall clusters of white hollyhock. I’m attending the marriage celebration of 24-year-old Baris and his 21-year-old bride, Dilan, in the Kurdish heartland near the borders of Syria, Iran and Iraq. This is not the actual wedding; the civil and religious ceremonies were performed earlier in the week. Not until after this party, though, will the couple spend their first night together as husband and wife. It will be a short celebration by Kurdish standards—barely 36 hours.
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.