Tag: Ahval News (www.ahvalnews.com) (Total 6)

A Kurdish academic named Hifzullah Kutum was suspended from Fırat University in Turkey’s eastern Elazığ province for a post on social media in which he said “Long live Kurdistan” accompanied by a picture of Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, Duvar English reported on Friday.

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 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.

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 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.