Tag: Turkey (Total 69)

Turkey’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the rights of the former co-chairwoman of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) were violated in connection with the 2017 stripping of her parliamentary seat on terror charges, Duvar news site reported on Saturday.

The Iraqi Kurdish Ministry of Peshmerga issued a sharp rebuke of Turkey’s defence minister after he flatly denied the existence of Kurdistan, Kurdish-outlet Rudaw English reported on Sunday.

In a Facebook post, the Peshmerga ministry wrote that Hulusi Akars comments were “surprising” given his high rank within the Turkish government and his experience with Iraqi Kurdistan in particular where Turkey has good relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil, Iraq.

A Kurdish man was detained after he called Turkey’s southeast “Kurdistan” during a conversation with Mustafa Sarıgül, the leader of the Party for Change in Turkey.

Kurdistan does not exist in or outside of Turkey, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said, news website Duvar reported on Tuesday.

The defence chief’s comments came in response to opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Deputy Tülay Hatimoğulları mentioned during budget hearings recent allegations that Turkey’s armed forces were using chemical weapons in the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.

Başak Demirtaş and her doctor sentenced over ‘falsified’ medical report on her miscarriage

RIC’s newest periodic report, appearing once every quarter, tracks human rights violations and crimes by Turkey and Turkish-backed SNA groups in the occupied regions of Afrin and the ‘M4 Strip’ – the border region between the occupied cities of Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad. The RIC team:

Mehmet Eymür, a former senior official at MİT, openly spoke about how a crime boss was used in an armed operation in Germany to target the PKK, how the agency had failed to assassinate Abdullah Öcalan in Syria, and how torture has always been a legitimate method used in interrogating political prisoners.

Kutum’s lawyer Mehmet Emin Aktar tweeted that his client was released after appeal at the 2nd Elazig High Criminal Court, where he was charged.

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.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A Kurdish academic has recieved a warning from his university in Turkey after making an online post celebrating a revolution of Kurds against the Iraqi government in the sixties.

Soldiers beat up elderly people in a village in the Ömeryan district of Mardin last week. Abdurrahman Din (73) said he was kicked even after falling to the ground.

An academic from Fırat University was first suspended and then arrested for writing the word ‘Kurdistan’ on Twitter

Kurdish fighters who died during the clashes with the Turkish Army are buried in the cemetery of the unknown without their families being informed

Sami Tunca, a journalist sentenced to a total of 70 years in prison, sent a letter from prison saying, ‘journalism is the most dangerous profession in Turkey.’

Aleppo Province – Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: SOHR activists reported that armed members of the Turkish-backed faction “Ahfad Al-Rasul” that is in control of Ba’danli village of Raju township in the countryside of Afrin city, discharged the Imam of the village’s mosque.

ARK News: A Human Rights Organization working to document violations in the Kurdish region of Afrin reported on its main page of Facebook today, 14.02.2020, that armed members of the Turkish-backed faction “Ahfad Al-Rasul” that is in control of Badina village of Rajo township in the countryside of Afrin city, discharged the Imam of the village’s mosque.

BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian fighters vowed to kill “pigs” and “infidels,” paraded their Kurdish captives in front of cameras and, in one graphic video, fired several rounds into a man lying on the side of a highway with his hands bound behind his back.

Turkish-backed Syrian rebels who seized the northern Syrian city of Afrin from a Kurdish militia on Sunday have been looting properties, reports say.

A UK-based monitoring group said shops and military and government facilities had been raided.

A rebel commander blamed “thieves” for the looting and said a unit had been set up to prevent further incidents.

The government of Turkey is accused of harvesting olives in Syria’s Afrin and selling them to the European Union (EU) countries.

In Switzerland, Conservative Democratic Party MP Bernhard Guhl has brought the topic into the parliamentary agenda, the Fox News reported.

According to the Olive Oil Times, Afrin Agricultural Council Deputy Chair Saleh Ibo said that Turkey has produced at least 5,000 tons of olive oil with the olives it took from Afrin area.

“They have also been confiscating the fields and olive groves of people who have had to flee Afrin due to the Turkish state violence in the months since the invasion,” Ibo added.

When Turkey launched a military offensive in northern Syria last January and called it Operation Olive Branch, many dismissed the name as part of a propaganda campaign.

Turkey said it wanted to rid the region of the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units. It has long fought Kurdish insurgents at home and views the fighters in Syria as part of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey.

One year on, it appears the name of the operation has also taken on a more literal meaning.

(Beirut) – Turkey-backed armed groups in the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have seized, looted, and destroyed property of Kurdish civilians in the Afrin district of northern Syria, Human Rights Watch said today. The anti-government armed groups have installed fighters and their families in residents’ homes and destroyed and looted civilian properties without compensating the owners.

Kurdish political parties and language promotion institutions have launched a campaign, calling on the Turkish government to recognize Kurdish as an official language in the country.

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 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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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).

Once used in the hunt for fugitive criminals, the global police agency’s most-wanted ‘red notice’ list now includes political refugees and dissidents

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.”

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.

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.

Jailed and Wanted Journalists in Turkey- Updated List