Members of the fascist group Greywolves have attacked a group of university students for listening to Kurdish music and performing the traditional halay folk dance in the southern province of Karaman. HDP MP Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu has brought the issue to parliament’s agenda, while the Diyarbakır Bar Association demanded an effective investigation.
Hüdai Morsümbül, the 23-year-old teacher, was exiled from his school.
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.
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.