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ultrajaphunter · 2 years ago

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3,000 of Russia’s feared Wagner mercenaries have already been killed in Ukraine after 8,000 were sent in to boost Putin’s flagging invasion, British MPs are told

· The shadowy Private Military Company has been linked to a string of war crimes

· Wagner are used by the Kremlin to carry out dirty work at arms length from Putin

· It has been widely reported that they have been deployed by Putin in Ukraine

· Christo Grozev, executive director of the Bellingcat investigative website, said 3,000 of its members are thoughts to have been killed on the battlefield so far

· He said his sources inside the group told him their numbers were 'much higher' than had first been expected by Western officials

· They included 200 personnel sent to Kyiv before the conflict in a failed mission to 'scout out and assassinate' political figures, while a 'large number' were deployed with convoys which advanced on the capital from Belarus.’

· He said they had also been present in Bucha, where some of the worst evidence of alleged war crimes had been discovered.

· Mr Grozev said they had been told by one former group member that some chose to fight because they enjoyed killing.'’

· He said that about 10 percent to 15 percent are sociopaths, people who go there just because they want to kill.

· They are bloodthirsty, they are not just adrenalin junkies,' he told the committee.

· Dr Sean McFate, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank and professor at the US National Defence University, said the group's brutality in the conflicts such as the Syrian civil war was 'part of their selling point' as far as Russian president Vladimir Putin was concerned.

· If you look at Bucha and others, there is the same pattern you saw in Syria, where they would interrogate, torture and behead people,' he said. 'One reason I think it has become one of Putin's weapons of choice is it allows some plausible deniability between excesses on the ground, failures on the ground, and policy.

· 'However Dr McFate said that to date, western countries had not taken the threat of the group very seriously, and had not tracked the movements of its members.

· 'This has emboldened them (Russia) to use this as a stratagem for national expansion, national interests,' he said.

· 'We have not done a good enough job in tracking them.

· We see them as cheap Hollywood villains, but in fact they are not.'Mr Grozev said that while imposing more sanctions on the group's head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as 'Putin's chef', would have little impact, it may be more effective targeting individual group members who like to holiday abroad with their families.'

· The knowledge that they do is a cause of ridicule about western sanctions because this spreads through the rumour mill,' he said.

· 'So stopping all of these people being able to travel internationally, at least to the western world, might be much, much bigger than slapping one more sanction on Prigozhin.'

· In light of Russia's startling losses and their new assault on the Donbas, the head of the Wagner Group is believed to have made the trip to Ukraine to oversee his men's deployment in the east. Yevgeny Prigozhin - a man known as 'Putin's Chef' - is now believed to be on the ground in the Donbas to oversee operations, though the wealthy friend of Putin is not a military veteran.'Prigozhin, who has no military experience and is the financier and organiser of Wagner Group rather than its military commander, is likely in Donbas to co-ordinate recruitment and financing of Wagner Group operations rather than to command combat operations,' said the Institute for War Studies, an American think tank.

· Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, has said that even more than the 8,000 Wagner mercenaries detailed by Mr Grozev are in Ukraine.Abdurrahman has said that 18,000 Wagner fighters are taking part in the conflict, in addition to 700 fighters from Syrian Brig. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan's 25th Special Missions Forces Division, known in Syria as the 'Tiger Force.'

· The 700 men left Syria over the past weeks to fight along Russian forces, Abdurrahman said.

· The numbers could not be independently confirmed. Pro-government activists posted videos over the past two weeks on social media showing members of the Tiger Force performing military drills including parachuting from helicopters.

· Russian officers appeared in one of the videos advising the paratroopers inside a helicopter as al-Hassan praised the young men by tapping on their heads.

· It was not immediately clear if the videos were new.Abdurrahman said there are also volunteers from the Russian-trained 5th Division;

· the Baath brigades, which is the armed wing of Assad's ruling Baath party; and the Palestinian Quds Brigade, made up of Palestinian refugees in Syria.

· All have fought alongside the Russian military in Syria's war.'

· The Russians are looking for experienced fighters.

· They don't want anyone who was not trained by the Russians,' Abdurrahman said.

· The Tiger Force took credit for some of the biggest government victories in the 11-year conflict.

· It was involved in a months long Russian-backed campaign into the rebels' last enclave, located in the northwest province of Idlib, which ended in March 2020 with government forces capturing a vital north-south highway - though rebels remain in control of the enclave.

· Meanwhile, a European official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia has a total of 10,000 to 20,000 foreign fighters in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

· The official said they are a mix of mercenaries from Russia's private Wagner Group and Russian proxy fighters from Syria and Libya.Kremlin officials boasted early in the invasion that thousands of experienced fighters from the Middle East would join Russian forces.

· However, military analysts say only a small number appears to have arrived in Russia for training before being deployed to the front lines, but they say that could change as Russia prepares for a full-scale offensive on Donbas.

· U.S. officials and activists monitoring Syria say the Russians have been actively recruiting.

· Rami Abdurrahman leads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

· He reported that about 40,000 people have registered so far.

· Rayan Maarouf of Suwayda24, an activist collective that covers IS activities in the Syrian desert, said fighters were promised no less than $600 a month.

· That's a huge sum of money amid widespread unemployment in Syria.

· Analysts say fighters from Syria are more likely to be deployed in coming weeks, especially after Gen. Alexander Dvornikov was named war commander.

· Dvornikov is well acquainted with the paramilitary forces Russia trained in Syria.

· Though some question how effective Syrian fighters would be in Ukraine, they could be brought in if more forces are needed to besiege cities or to make up for rising casualties.

· Syrian and Palestinian officials in Syria have played down reports of fighters heading to Ukraine.

· The Syrian government is likely wary of having Syrian fighters flock to Ukraine, opening opportunities at the front lines that its opponents could exploit.In a potentially worrying sign for the Syrian government, Russia has significantly scaled down its operations in Syria since the war in Ukraine started, with fewer airstrikes targeting IS or opposition positions in Idlib.'

· Any change in the posture of Russian forces or pro-regime militias creates security gaps that anti-regime actors including Turkey, ISIS, al-Qaida and Syrian opposition groups can exploit,' the ISW report said.Muhannad Haj Ali, a former legislator and a commander with the armed wing of Syria's ruling Baath party said no Syrians have gone to fight in Ukraine and that he didn't expect any to go.

· He said he was certain Russia will win in Ukraine without any need for Syrians' help.'

· The way the operations are going is clear indication that Ukraine will not be another Afghanistan,' he said.

· Bucha atrocities: German intelligence 'intercepts Russian troop messages discussing murders as part of strategy'

· The barbaric atrocities at Bucha were part of a deliberate Kremlin strategy carried out in part by the feared Wagner Group of mercenaries, intercepted Russian radio transmissions have revealed.

· Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND, has heard messages from Putin's forces discussing the brutal murder of civilians in the city of horrors outside Kyiv, which was recaptured by Ukraine over the weekend.

· The transmissions have been linked to specific corpses seen in Bucha, with one soldier talking about how he and his colleagues shot dead someone on a bicycle, while another said: 'First question soldiers, then shoot them.'

· The audio messages have been relayed to German parliament by the BND to further debunk baseless Kremlin claims that the bodies were staged by Ukraine after Russia withdrew from the city in a 'monstrous forgery', Spiegel reported.

· The wiretap recordings also show that the Wagner Group was present in the city and played 'a key role' in the massacre, and that there are likely similar scenes of slaughter elsewhere in the country.

· The shadowy military company which has been linked to a string of killings, rapes and war crimes around the world is known as Putin's private army which carries out his dirty work at an arm's length from the state.

· The BND recordings from Bucha indicate the atrocities were neither accidental nor carried out by individual out-of-control soldiers.

· Messages show the troops regularly discussed the potential war crimes as if they were talking about their everyday lives.

· The BND told German leaders this shows how the killings were normalised and part of a deliberate strategy intended to sow fear and terror among the civilian population.Further recordings are being analysed by intelligence chiefs 'with great concern' which have not yet been pinpointed to a specific place in Ukraine.

· But they indicate crime scenes similar to Bucha in other cities across the country, particularly around Mariupol which remains under heavy bombardment.

· The new evidence prompted two former German government ministers to submit a criminal complaint with federal prosecutors seeking the opening of a war crimes probe against Russian officials including Putin.

· Former Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and former Interior Minister Gerhart Baum said they want to use German laws allowing prosecution of serious crimes committed abroad to bring to justice those they consider responsible for atrocities in Ukraine.

· Germany's application of the rule of 'universal jurisdiction' led to the first conviction of a senior Syrian official for crimes against humanity earlier this year.

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barri-zonema · 3 years ago

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Kurds created local councils - promoted public ownership - as well as gender equality - defeat the Islamic State - Women’s Liberation Ideology describes jineology

The Kurds have been suppressed in all sorts of ways, often very violently,” said Henri Barkey, a professor of international relations at Lehigh University and adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “They have really suffered at the hands of the four states.”

Omer Taspinar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that for decades Turkey has had a policy of “assimilating the Kurds into Turkish ethnic identity, denial of Kurdish ethnic identity and denial of Kurdish linguistic rights.”

Kurdish forces belonging to the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit, or YPG, joined forces with Arab groups and created the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. The United States, Britain, France and other countries provided the SDF with weapons.

Since then, Kurdish fighters have led the alliance, which was crucial in toppling the Islamic State.

Kurds created local councils to replace government establishments, and promoted public ownership of land, water, and other resources, as well as gender equality. Many Kurdish fighters are women.

Then on Sunday, a Turkish air strike hit a convoy in the Syrian border town of Ras al Ain, killing at least 14 people and wounding 10 more, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The SDF said the convoy included civilians and journalists.

A brief history of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish-led alliance that helped the U.S. defeat the Islamic State

From prison, Öcalan has published several books. Jineology, also known as the science of women, is a form of feminism advocated by Öcalan and subsequently a fundamental tenet of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK).

Öcalan's philosophy of democratic confederalism is a strong influence on the political structures of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, an autonomous polity formed in Syria in 2012.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)'s Women’s Liberation Ideology describes jineology as "a fundamental scientific term in order to fill the gaps that the current social sciences are incapable of doing.

Jineology is built on the principle that without the freedom of women within society and without a real consciousness surrounding women no society can call itself free."

Öcalan has said "a country can't be free unless the women are free", the level of woman's freedom determines the level of freedom in society at large.

To put into context the environment this comes from, violent oppression of women exists in the region in general, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) being the most radical emanation of Namus-based subjugation of women.

On a wider scale, proponents of jineology consider capitalism to be anti-women and thus jineology to be inherently anti-capitalist.

The bourgeoisie knows no bounds in imperialist and reactionary aggression. The people of Afrin are faced with the most reckless, despicable and immoral aggression.

This is the aggression of wanting to be destroyed purely because of its national identity, as well as waging war against the will of a people. The working class and laborers of the world must be in active solidarity with the people of AFRIN by opposing this aggression.

AFRIN (as in ROJAVA) is the only people living under their own will in the most democratic form of government in peace and tranquillity.

Since all imperialists and reactionary states stood against the free self-determination of the people, they remained silent in the face of the attacks of the Turkish ruling classes, and many of them openly supported them.

AFRIN, who wants to be sacrificed to the interests of the imperialist bandits who shed blood in the region, must be protected and embraced by the working class and the oppressed peoples of the world, and must stand and fight against this vile attack.

First of all, Turkish workers and laborers should oppose this murderous and immoral attack of the Turkish state and stand in the way of these attacks and be in active solidarity with the people of AFRIN.

The AKP government, the representative of the new imperialist Turkish bourgeoisie, fed by war and racism, will not be able to cover up its crimes by attacking Afrin, nor will it be able to defeat the people of Afrin.

The Turkish state is a war criminal state. The working class and laborers must hold accountable for this. This account consists of taking an active part in the side of the people of Afrin. Wherever we are, we must stand against the aggression, occupation and war against Afrin, and ensure that the Turkish capital state is repulsed.

All Kurds of the World Unite!

All Kurds of the world unite against the vile and murderous attacks of the Turkish fascist state. Join without question.

Unite and protect your own lands against a murderous state that wants to destroy the most peaceful Kurdish region in the world, the land of olives, the symbol of peace, just because the Kurds live.

Until today, the only place in Syria that could not be destroyed was ARFIN. This was accomplished by the peaceful and democratic Kurdish people. Because their war is not; whatever their language, religion, gender and nationality, they needed to live together in peace and tranquillity.

They sent ISIS, especially the Turkish state and others, to AFRIN many times. However, it was repelled by the masterful military tactics of the YPG/YPJ led by the PYD and the support of the people, and the people of that region were able to live in peace.

And just as there has been no attack from AFRIN - although most of it is surrounded by the borders of the Turkish state - there has been no attack or threat against the Turkish state.

The Turkish state, ISIS, etc. Despite repeated harassment and military attacks by murderous gangs such as people of AFRIN, the people of AFRIN have always extended a hand of peace to the Turkish state. However, a racist fascist state, which perceives even the peaceful life of the Kurds as a "threat", continued to feel uncomfortable with this.

The Turkish capital state sees the free life of the Kurds and their free self-determination as the biggest obstacle to their desire to become the destructive-aggressive sovereign state of the Middle East. For this reason, it has included the democratic Kurdish national movement in the category of "priority threat" as the main target at home and abroad.

Not only the Turkish state, but also the US and Russian imperialists, as well as the European imperialists who gave all kinds of support to the Turkish state, are equally responsible and guilty for the Turkish state's attack on AFRIN.

The German bourgeoisie's prohibition of carrying the flags and emblems of the YPG, which is fighting against ISIS, in marches and rallies, and urgently undertaking the repair of tanks belonging to the Turkish army, showed that it is a part of this war.

However, the German working class and toilers will not delay in opposing these dirty deals of the German bourgeoisie.

The Turkish state should immediately put an end to the occupation and all kinds of attacks against AFRIN, and all imperialists should withdraw their bloody hands from the region. 20.01.2018

Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries.

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.

Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

Working Men of All Countries, Unite!

Democratic confederacies Kurdish: confederalîzm democratic‎; also known as Kurdish communalism or Apoism is a political concept theorized by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan about a system of democratic self-organization[4] with the features of a confederation based on the principles of autonomy, direct democracy, environmentalism, feminism, multiculturalism, self-defence, self-governance and elements of a sharing economy.

Influenced by social ecology, libertarian municipalise, Middle Eastern history, nationalism and general state theory, Öcalan presents the concept as a political solution to Kurdish nationalist aspirations, as well as other fundamental problems in countries in the region deeply rooted in class society, and as a route to freedom and democratization for people around the world.

Although the liberation struggle of the PKK was originally guided by the prospect of creating a Kurdish nation state on a Marxist–Leninist basis,

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was initially inspired by national liberation movements across the planet, many of whom were influenced by Marxist-Leninist ideals and left-wing nationalism

As a liberatory framework emerging from the Kurdish movement, jineology places women at the center of the struggle against patriarchy, capitalism and the state.

Allowing the recent developments in northern Syria, Kurdish women have often been portrayed in the Western media as fierce fighters combating the savage barbarians of the so-called Islamic State.

Considering Kurdish female guerrilla fighters as heroines defending Western values of democracy and gender equality, however, frames Kurdish women in an Orientalist narrative that grants political agency and recognition only as long as their actions fit liberal Western values.

Yet the struggle that Kurdish women are waging is deeply rooted in radical political thought and practice, and as such does not lend itself as easily to a Western liberal worldview as it might appear at first sight.

The Kurdish movement emerged in the late 1970s out of a fragmented Turkish left and radicalized in the torture chambers of Diyarbakir prisons following the 1980 military coup in Turkey. Since its inception it has evolved from a dogmatic Marxist-Leninist caterpillar to a radical democratic butterfly.

Abandoning the objective of an independent socialist Kurdistan, the movement now draws upon the theory and praxis of feminism, social ecology and libertarian municipalise to transcend the state.

Instead of centralizing power, it seeks to re-allocate it to the grassroots through horizontal forms of representation. Inspired in part by the American communalist theorist Murray Bookchin, the Kurdish movement has clearly articulated its aspirations for a post-capitalist and post-state society and has begun to implement these ideas in the Kurdish autonomous regions of Rojava, in northern Syria.

The struggle for gender equality stands at the heart of the Kurdish movement’s vision for a just society.

Locating the historical root of social, economic and cultural oppression and injustice in the emergence of gender hierarchies in the Neolithic era, Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader and chief theorist of the Kurdish movement, proposes a direct relation between gender hierarchies and state formation.

Referring to women as “the first colony,” Öcalan argues that the nation-state, monotheistic religions and capitalism all constitute different institutionalized forms of the dominant male. Fighting patriarchal social structures ― or, in Öcalan’s words, “killing the dominant male” ― consequently becomes an imperative in the struggle for a society that will transcend the oppressive structures of the capitalist nation-state.

Within this struggle, the Kurdish paradigm stresses the importance of an enduring transformation of both social and personal mentalities; a term that resonates with the Foucauldian concept of discourse as an encompassing formation of thought, while stressing its rootedness in practice and hence underlining the need for an antagonistic struggle in order to achieve lasting change.

In a framework that rethinks the boundaries of citizenship, the classical Marxist focus on class struggle is in this way broadened to take into account other forms of oppression.

The liberation of women takes on a pivotal role both for theoretical reflection on social reality and for practical efforts undertaken towards radically changing that reality.

The movement asserts that for the social struggle to be successful, it is vital to fully comprehend the links between capitalist, statist and gender oppression.

Taking into account insights from both anti-colonial and anti-capitalist resistance movements of the twentieth century, the understanding of struggle itself is thus fundamentally reformulated.

Jineology, a framework of radical feminist analysis that the Kurdish movement has been developing since 2008, tries to transfer the advancements of the Kurdish women’s movement into society.

A neologism derived from the Kurdish word for woman, jin, jineology criticizes how the positivistic sciences have monopolized all forms of power in the hands of men.

As a theoretical paradigm, it is based on the concrete experiences of Kurdish women facing both patriarchal and colonial oppression. Using this new perspective, jineology seeks to develop an alternative methodology for the existing social sciences that stands in contrast to androcentric knowledge systems.

At the same time, it also articulates a powerful critique of Western feminism. According to Dilar Dirik, an academic and advocate of jineology, the feminist deconstruction of gender roles has contributed immensely to our understanding of sexism.

Nevertheless, jineology remains critical towards the failure of Western feminism to build an alternative. It criticizes mainstream feminism’s failure to achieve wider social change by limiting the framework of the persisting order.

Intersectional feminism addresses these issues, underlining the observation that forms of oppression are interlinked and that feminism needs to take a holistic approach to tackle them. Yet according to the Kurdish movement, the problem is that these debates never leave the circles of academia. Jineology proposes itself as a method to explore these questions in a collectivist manner. As such, jineology can be seen as the living practice that evolved from the discussions of women all over Kurdistan.

Necîbe Qeredaxî has been a journalist and advocate for Kurdish rights for eighteen years. She is a founding member of a research center for jineology in Brussels, which will soon open its doors to the public. The aim of the organization is the promotion of research in the human and social sciences that concerns women’s emancipation.

The center will be organizing seminars and workshops, will carry out research on gender violence and women’s oppression, and seeks to reach out to feminist movements in Belgium and beyond.

What is jineology and what does it struggle for?

Necîbe Qeredaxî: The term jineology is composed of two words: jin, the Kurdish word for “woman,” and logos, Greek for “word” or “reason.” So it is the science or the study of women.

What is jineology, for those hearing about it for the first time? Jineology is both an outcome and a beginning. It is the outcome of the dialectical progress of the Kurdish women’s movement, as well as a beginning to respond to the contradictions and problems of modern society, economics, health, education, ecology, ethics and aesthetics.

While the social sciences have dealt with these issues, they remain influenced by the reigning hegemony and have distorted the issues at hand, particularly the relations between men and women. Jineology therefore proposes a new analysis of these fields.

Turkish government to establish the idea of centralization was to attract the Kurds to participate in parliament. The government was on occasion, successful in this regard and some Kurds did take seats in the national parliament.

To change Kurdish attitudes towards centralization the CUP allowed some Kurds to establish themselves and take up senior roles within the party. It was not long after the implementation of

Turkey's constitution when the freedom of the smaller ethnic communities in Turkey was restricted and outlawed. Turkish state ideology as a tool for persuading and assimilating the Kurds and other ethnic and linguistic groups.

Existing studies emphasize that the Kurds were subjected to a systematic forced assimilation campaign by the new Kemalist state.

This paper stresses that the formation of Turkey after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire is the root to understanding the ideological foundation of the Turkish state’s denial of the Kurds, their history, language and even their existence.

This has huge implications for Turkey’s claims to secular democracy, its regional stature and aspirations to join the

European Union.House raids in Diyarbakır and Adana: Many detentions

At least 59 people, including Jinnews reporter Beritan Canözer, were detained in a house raid in Diyarbakır August 13, 2021As part of an investigation conducted by the Adana Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, many houses were raided. In the raid on 29 addresses within the scope of the investigation, the doors of the houses were broken with rams, and the belongings in the houses were distributed during the searches.

It was stated that many people were detained in house raids and searches continued in many houses.

It was stated that 59 people, including Jinnews reporter Beritan Canözer, were detained in the raids before 15 August on charges of "making propaganda for a terrorist organization" and "acting on behalf of a terrorist organization", and that the number of detentions will increase.

The detainees were taken to Diyarbakır Provincial Security Directorate after their health checks.I am appealing to those who demand education in their mother tongue. You can open language schools wherever you want to teach your mother tongue.

But do not request education in the mother tongue from us because the official language of Turkey is Turkish. Do not attempt to exploit this issue. I underline that these moves aim to divide our country (Today’s Zaman 2011).

The arguments from both the MHP party and also the ruling party AKP simply contend that education in mother tongue for Kurds cannot be made possible as it would divide the country.

Thus, one can observe a temporal discussion, where the discussion of fear and separatism from the past is still used in the present.

In a similar speech Erdogan states the impossibility of mother tongue education in Turkey by arguing that the request for education in mother tongue derives from the PKK (Haksoz Haber 2012).

He does not reference the requests of legitimate political parties(such as those mentioned before by the BDP and their one million signature petition) or

Turkey arrests pro-Kurdish MP who was expelled from parliament

Turkish authorities on Sunday arrested a pro-Kurdish opposition MP who had refused to leave parliament for several days after his seat was revoked, his party said.

Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu “was brought out by force while he was in pyjamas and slippers” by “nearly 100 police officers”, the leftist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said in a statement.

His remark referred to a decade marked by a flaring of the Kurdish conflict in southeastern Turkey, when several pro-Kurdish MPs were arrested.

The HDP, the third largest party in the Turkish parliament, has been under a constant crackdown since 2016 with the arrest of several of its lawmakers and leaders, including its charismatic co-chair Selahattin Demirtas.

Demirtas – a two-time rival to incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan in presidential elections – has been kept in detention since 2016 despite calls from European Court of Human Rights demanding his release.

The top public prosecutor in Ankara had on Wednesday demanded that the HDP be dissolved over its alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The PKK has been waging an insurgency since 1984 that has killed tens of thousands and is listed as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and its Western allies.

The HDP has seen dozens of its mayors dismissed over alleged terror links. Western powers have universally condemned the bid to shut down the HDP. The country’s highest court is due to rule on the case in the coming weeks.

EU ‘deeply concerned,’ condemns move to ban Turkey pro-Kurdish party

The European Union on Thursday said it was “deeply concerned” about attempts to shut down Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish opposition party, warning the move heightens worries over “backsliding” by Ankara.

The criticism from Brussels comes a day before EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel hold video talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Closing the second largest opposition party would violate the rights of millions of voters in Turkey,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and enlargement commissioner Oliver Varhelyi said in a statement.

“It adds to the EU’s concerns regarding the backsliding in fundamental rights in Turkey and undermines the credibility of the Turkish authorities’ stated commitment to reforms.”

The statement insisted that Ankara “urgently needs to respect its core democratic obligations, including respect for democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”

Leyla Zana (born 3 May 1961) is a Kurdish politician in Turkey who was imprisoned for ten years for her political activism, which was deemed by the Turkish courts to be against the unity of the country.

She was awarded the 1995 Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament, but was unable to collect it until her release in 2004. She was also awarded the Rafto Prize in 1994 after being recognized by the Rafto Foundation for being incarcerated for her peaceful struggle for the human rights of the Kurdish people in Turkey and the neighbouring countries.[1]

A Turkish court has sentenced a Kurdish former lawmaker, who shot to fame for a months-long hunger strike two years ago, to more than 22 years in jail on terror-related charges.

Leyla Guven, an opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy who was stripped of her parliamentary immunity in June, was convicted of membership of a “terror group” and disseminating “terror propaganda” for outlawed Kurdish armed groups.

RBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – A Turkish court in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir on Thursday upheld a previously reversed conviction for the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker Abdullah Zeydan, sentencing him to eight years, one month, and 15 days in prison.

Authorities already hold him along with HDP’s Co-leader Selahattin Demirtas in a supermax prison in the northwestern city of Edirne since late 2016.MP Zeydan of Hakkari was being tried for the second time after a regional higher court in the city of Gaziantep overturned the same sentence three months ago.

Prosecutors accused him of “aiding a terrorist organization and disseminating its propaganda,” Kurdistan 24’s Diyarbakir bureau reported.We see high levels of very rough policing in Turkey today, police violence toward people such as student demonstrators, but in general a security establishment that feels it has gained the upper hand and is not curbed by laws or regulations that it cannot circumvent. The climate of impunity prevails.”

Last month, a top prosecutor applied to the Constitutional Court with an indictment to shut down the HDP, but the indictment was recently sent back to the prosecutor over procedural shortcomings. It is likely to be re-submitted after making required changes.

Turkish opposition MP Gergerlioglu hospitalized, then jailed.Human Rights Watch calls for investigation into MP’s arrest, which put him into hospital before his transfer to prison.

“Inside Turkey’s prisons the conditions for political prisoners are becoming increasingly barbaric.” Kate Osborne MP

Last week in Parliament, I highlighted the increasingly authoritarian policies of President Erdoğan and the Turkish Government during a Westminster Hall Debate on the Arrest of Opposition Politicians in Turkey.

Extreme repression and the decline of democracy has been a concern in Turkey since the peace talks broke down in 2015 between the Kurds and President Erdoğan, and the failed coup in July 2016 by a faction of the Turkish armed forces. Since these events, we have seen a war being waged against the Kurdish population and an outrageous aggressive foreign policy being pursued in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Azerbaijan.

As things stand, President Erdoğan and his far-right regime are engaged in a campaign of annihilation against the main opposition party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which is majority Kurdish, dragging Turkey into further political polarisation, social turmoil, and economic instability.

It has led to tens of thousands of journalists, trade unionists, teachers, opposition politicians, human rights activists, women’s activists, and countless others being jailed and/or dismissed from their jobs.

HDP activists and politicians have suffered continuous harassment, arrests, and imprisonment, including over 700 arrests on 15 February this year. They are arrested under the guise of ‘belonging to a terrorist organisation’, or ‘promotion of a terrorist group’.

It has led to the party’s leaders all receiving lengthy prison sentences and elected MPs and local politicians arrested and replaced with the Government’s appointed trustees. It is now looking increasingly likely that the ongoing political and legal onslaught on the HDP may well result in the party being banned.

Inside Turkey’s prisons the conditions for political prisoners at the hands of this brutal regime are becoming increasingly barbaric.

Kurdish and HDP prisoners are often purposely placed miles away from home in nationalist areas.

There is little access to healthcare for these political prisoners and they were the only category of prisoner that were refused release to stop the spread of covid-19.

Selahattin Demirtaş: the trial of the man who wanted to be Turkey’s president. After more than four years of being held in a pre-trial detention that the ECHR ruled ‘unlawful’, Demirtaş is due to have his next trial hearing tomorrow

For more than four years, Selahattin Demirtaş, the writer and former co-chair of Turkey’s People’s Democratic Party (HDP), who in 2014 and 2018 ran in the country’s presidential elections, has been held in pre-trial detention on multiple terror-related charges. In December last year, the European Court of Human Rights found his detention to be unlawful and ordered his release. On 6 May, he will face his next hearing.

Selahattin Demirtaş granted Weimar Human Rights Award

Selahattin Demirtaş, the jailed former Co-Chair of the HDP, has been granted the 2021 Weimar Human Rights Award on the grounds that he was “one of the most important opposition politicians in Turkey’s recent history.”As for the other politicians from Turkey granted the award, HDP Adana MP and lawyer Meral Danış Beştaş received it in 1998.Selahattin Demirtaş was born in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeastern province of Diyarbakır in 1973.

He graduated from the Faculty of Law of Ankara University. He worked as a self-employed lawyer.

He was the Executive Board Member and Branch Chair of the Human Rights Association (İHD) Diyarbakır Branch. When Demirtaş was its Chair, the Association's policy was oriented towards addressing the unidentified murders. In the same period, he was also among the founders of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV-HRFT) and Amnesty International Diyarbakır.

He held executive positions in the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV-HRFT) and Amnesty International Turkey.

Entering politics at the Democratic Society Party (DTP) in 2007, Demirtaş was elected an MP in the 23rd Legislative Session. He joined the DTP group at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) and was the Parliamentary group deputy chair. After the DTP was closed in 2009, he and Gültan Kışanak were elected the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Co-Chairs.

At the General Elections in 2011, he was elected the Hakkari MP of the Labor, Democracy and Freedom Bloc in the 24th Legislative Session.

BDP Co-Chair during the Resolution Process for the Kurdish Questions, Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ were elected the Co-Chairs of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) on June 22, 2014.

Running for President at the Presidential Election on August 10, 2014, Demirtaş was elected an MP at both June 7 and November 1 elections in 2015.

After the legislative immunity of several lawmakers facing summaries of proceedings were lifted on May 20, 2016, over 90 files about Demirtaş were sent to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office.

Stripped of his MP status and arrested, Selahattin Demirtaş faces two aggravated life sentences and 486 years in prison in total. His convictions in other cases have also become final.

Journalist Hikmet Tunç sentenced to 8 months, 22 days in prison

Put on trial for “insulting” the trustee appointed to the Muradiye District Municipality in her news report, Hikmet Tunç, the Van reporter for JinNews women’s news agency, has been sentenced to 8 months, 22 days in prison.

Imprisoned former HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş has made a statement about the deadly racist attack against a Kurdish family in Konya: “The main reason behind this massacre, tension and conflicts is the discriminatory policies of the government.”

Unfortunately, the main reason behind this massacre, tension and conflicts is the discriminatory policies of the government, its targeting language and the dirty calculations of the gangs, inside and outside the state, who are encouraged by this.

My humble recommendation to our entire people, Turkish and Kurdish, is the following: Don't give credence or bow down to the language of hate and discriminatory policies. Let's act with wisdom and patience regardless of the circumstances. Let's turn to the collective conscience that we will create together, not to rage.

"We are working hard for an environment where the law works and justice prevails. For this reason, let's be calm and don't feel hopeless, desperate or abandoned. It will perhaps be difficult, but we will most definitely bring peace, democracy, equality, freedom and justice."

The assault on human rights and the rule of law presided over by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan continued during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The president’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and an allied far-right party enjoy a parliamentary majority enabling them to consolidate authoritarian rule by passing rushed legislation that contravenes international human rights obligations.

Opposition parties remain sidelined under Turkey’s presidential system and the government has reshaped public and state institutions to remove checks on power and to ensure benefits for its own supporters. The political opposition nevertheless controls the municipalities of Istanbul and Ankara. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/turkey

https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/europe-and-central-asia/turkey/report-turkey/

Turkey: Imprisoned journalists, human rights defenders and others, now at risk of Covid-19, must be urgently released

Thousands of Kurdish politicians, activists, journalists and academics have been arrested since 2009 on suspicion of links with the KCK and

There's even a joke saying that every Kurd will be arrested once in his life.” Sadık Topaloğlu, journalist, Istanbul bureau, Mesopotamia Agency.https://www.pri.org/stories/2021-03-09/all-us-have-been-arrested-least-once-kurdish-press-turkey-walk-fine-line

HDP Young Women's Assembly members exposed their policies of spying and threatening their members with a press statement at the İHD Istanbul Branch.

https://www.gazetepatika15.com/hdp-genc-kadin-koordinasyonu-mucadelemizden vazgecmeyecegiz-93094.html

Statement from Grup Munzur: Not us; our songs are being judged

Grup Munzur stated that lawsuits were filed due to the folk songs they sang, marches and speeches on the stage, and that the members of the group were unlawfully arrested and given various punishments.

Not solely Kurdish women but also Arab and Christian women arrive at the centers looking for help; the problems of patriarchy transcend ethnicity and religion. Other projects seek to train women in skills so they can support themselves without relying on male relatives. At the women’s center in Qamislo, the most popular course is “women and rights,” teaching women that they really do have the right and the ability to conduct their own lives based on their own choices.

women in Rojava participate in public and political life. All leadership positions, in every institution or organization, are twofold: one male and one female. And according to the Social Contract, “The proportion of the representation of both genders in all institutions, administrations and bodies is of at least 40 percent.” That is, any meeting must consist of 40 percent women.

This quota is observed in all mixed-gender people’s councils, organizations, and committees. And alongside the mixed-gender councils are corresponding all-women councils that have veto power over decisions that affect women. As a result, women have become a real political force. In the city of Afrin, over 65 percent of individuals involved in the administration are women.

https://towardfreedom.org/story/archives/women/the-women-s-revolution-in-rojava/

ABDULLAH OCALAN, “LIBERATING LIFE: WOMEN’S REVOLUTION,

Canonical text of the Kurdish women’s liberation movement.

INTERVIEW WITH THE WORLD’S FIRST ARMY OF WOMEN: YJA-STAR, SIGNALFIRE, MARCH 23, 2014

Why it is essential for women to have their own army in order to achieve equality with men in a guerrilla organization, and why this army is a model for autonomous women’s organizations in other spheres. The struggle of women is a prerequisite to democracy.

“DON’T KNOW US BECAUSE OF OUR GUNS, BUT BECAUSE OF OUR IDEAS,” DILAR DIRIK, OPEN DEMOCRACY

Rather than being a rights-based side issue that puts the burden on women, women’s liberation and equality of all genders become a matter of responsibility for all of society, because they become measures of defining society’s ethics and freedom. For a radical and revolutionary freedom struggle, women's liberation must be a central aim, but also an active method in the process.

JANET BIEHL, “THE WOMEN’S REVOLUTION IN ROJAVA,” AUGUST 27, 2015, TOWARD FREEDOM

From its inception in 2011, the Rojava revolution put women’s rights first, outlawing polygamy and forced marriages, criminalizing “honor killings,” and transforming a traditional agricultural society into one where women are moving towards equality.

RAHILA GUPTA, “THE ROJAVA PAPERS,” A SERIES OF FIVE ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN OPENDEMOCRACY IN APRIL, 2015: “A REVOLUTION FOR OUR TIMES: ROJAVA, NORTHERN SYRIA,” APRIL 4 2016

The border crossing and contrast between Iraqi Kurdistan and Rojava.

“ROJAVA’S COMMITTMENT TO JINEOLOJI: THE SCIENCE OF WOMEN,” APRIL 11 2016

The question of a Kurdish state, women’s academies and male-female co-chairs.

“ROJAVA REVOLUTION: IT’S RAINING WOMEN,” APRIL 26 2016

Kongreya Star, the umbrella women’s organization, drawing women into political life.

"ROJAVA REVOLUTION: RESHAPING MASCULINITY,” MAY 9 2016

The struggle to overturn traditional ideas of masculinity and women’s place.

“ROJAVA REVOLUTION: ON THE HOOF,” MAY 23 2016

Economics: Setting up women’s cooperatives, dealing with Rojava’s oil.

"ROJAVA REVOLUTION: HOW DEEP IS THE CHANGE?" JUNE 20 2016.

Are political differences being worked through or buried? And what about sex?

GÜLTAN KIŞANAK, INTERVIEWED BY NADJE AL-ALI AND LATIF TAS, “KURDISH WOMEN’S BATTLE CONTINUES AGAINST STATE AND PATRIARCHY, SAYS FIRST FEMALE CO-MAYOR OF DIYARBAKIR,” AUGUST 12, 2016, OPENDEMOCRACY

A germinal interview with a leader in the Kurdish women’s movement and HDP, covering her time in jail and the struggle to make local HDP leaders responsive to women’s leadership. Since this interview, Kişanak was prosecuted, along with most other HDP leaders, and sentenced to fourteen years in prison for “aiding terrorism.”

MEREDITH TAX, “WHEN WOMEN FIGHT ISIS.” AUGUST 18, 2016, NEW YORK TIMES

While militaries often target women in wartime, as a way of symbolically defiling and disrupting a culture, Kurdish female guerrillas have become empowered through actively taking up self-defense and defense of other women from ISIS, particularly the Yazidis.

BENEDETTO ARGENTIERI, “NO TIME FOR LOVE, CHILDREN, 'DESIRES': MEET THE FEMALE KURDISH FREEDOM FIGHTERS,” AUGUST 30, 2017, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

Interviews with women guerillas who have devoted their lives entirely to the struggle.

DILAR DIRIK, “FEMINIST PACIFISM OR PASSIVE-ISM?” MARCH 7, 2017, OPENDEMOCRACY

Resistance is central to the Kurdish women’s liberation movement and the pacifism of liberal feminists fails to distinguish between state militarism and legitimate self-defence, based on social justice, communal ethics, and women’s autonomy.

JOOST JONGERDEN, “GENDER EQUALITY AND RADICAL DEMOCRACY: CONTRACTIONS AND CONFLICTS IN RELATION TO THE ‘NEW PARADIGM’ WITHIN THE KURDISTAN WORKERS’ PARTY (PKK),” 2017

The paradigm change from the goal of a national state to democratic confederalism and autonomy within the PKK and affiliated Kurdish liberation organizations was closely connected with the increasing leadership of women in the party. These questions led to a split in 2004, in which the new paradigm and women emerged victorious.

LAVA SELO, “WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN ROJAVA: PERCEPTIONS BELIEVED AND REALITIES YET TO BE ACHIEVED,” JULY 2018, HEINRICH BOLL STIFTUNG

A skeptical researcher interviews 27 women in Rojava to find out how much their equality is real and how much is aspirational. Lots of data on organizational structures and the challenges faced by those trying to change traditional behavior.

ANYA BRIY AND MAHIR KURTAY INTERVIEWING AYŞE GÖKKAN AND GÜLCIHAN ŞIMŞEK, “INTERVIEW WITH THE FREE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT (TJA) IN NORTH KURDISTAN,” OCTOBER 23, 2018, OPENDEMOCRACY

An interview with TJA-KJA representatives in Diyarbakir. The Free Women’s Congress (KJA) was established in 2015 as an umbrella for various women’s initiatives, as well as political parties, NGO’s, culture and faith groups, and local governments.

RICHARD HALL, ‘WELCOME TO JINWAR, A WOMEN-ONLY VILLAGE IN SYRIA THAT WANTS TO SMASH THE PATRIARCHY.” DECEMBER 2, 2018, INDEPENDENT

A village in Rojava built by and inhabited only by women, many of them war widows, others who want to live an independent life free of man.

ANYA BRIY, INTERVIEWING B.E., “THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE KURDISH WOMEN’S MOVEMENT,” JANUARY 3, 2019, OPENDEMOCRACY

An interview with an editor of the Jineoloji Journal in Diyarbakir about theoretical and practical activities of the Kurdish women’s movement in Turkey. The journal is one of the few remaining initiatives by the Kurdish movement that have not been shut down in the wake of the 2015-2016 military offensive by the Turkish state on predominantly Kurdish cities or otherwise repressed since the 2016 failed coup attempt.

MERAL ZIN CICEK, INTERVIEW, “THE WOMEN’S REVOLUTION IN THE 21ST CENTURY: FROM SOLIDARITY TO COMMON STRUGGLE,” MARCH 13, 2019, KOMUN ACADEMY

A call to raise the level of unity in the global women’s liberation movement and also its organizational capacity, so that its solidarity will become more than emotional support.

https://www.defendrojava.org/kurdish-womens-liberation-movement

NEWS CENTER - In order to embrace the Istanbul Convention, many journalists and artists said, "Speak up too".

The struggle of women continues for the Istanbul Convention, which was abolished by AKP President Tayyip Erdoğan's one night decree and announced to be abolished completely on 1 July. Many artists, journalists and writers also called for the ownership of the Istanbul Convention.

Actors Ayşenil Şamlıoğlu, Deniz Çakır, Leyla Selen Uçer, journalists Şirin Payzın, Melis Alphan, Ece Temelkuran and many others made a video call for the Istanbul Convention.

Istanbul Convention call from journalists and artists

The women who shared on their social media accounts listed the names of the women murdered by male violence and said, "The Istanbul Convention is ours.

Give your voice to the Istanbul Convention." In the 20th century, public officials in Turkey viewed the Kurdish language and Kurdish issue as a security issue and therefore imposed strict rules banning the language, relocating people, imprisoning, executing, enforcing Turkish language and names, and even establishing boarding schools for Kurdish children in order to prevent any secession attempts by Kurds.

By contrast, the discussion of the 21st century presented in this thesis shows that politicians still talk about security and how the spread of Kurdish language is a threat to the unity of the country.

However, it is being so openly and extensively discussed which was not the case even a decade ago. Now the Kurdish language has entered a different arena and can be viewed as a legitimate political issue that can be publicly discussed.

The question remains then how long it will take for Kurdish language discussion to leave the political platform and become an inviolable human right.

KURDS AND TURKISH NATIONALISM: FROM ASSIMILATION TO ELIMINATIONKURDS AND TURKISH NATIONALISM: FROM ASSIMILATION TO ELIMINATION

9 MONTHS AGOPOLICY REPORTS

Throughout the past century, the Kurdish question has been a forefront issue in Turkish nationalism, and the only answer the nationalists have presented to resolve the Kurdish issue is attempting to eliminate the Kurds.

Throughout this period, Turkish nationalism has reared its head in many forms. Still, in each way, the ethnic cleansing of Turkish minority populations has been at the centre of the Turkish state's ideology and supported by the country's nationalists.

To understand the hidden objectives behind Turkey's offensives in the Kurdish areas of Syria, one must understand both the conflict between these two nationalisms in Turkey and the ideology of the Turkish state.

This Turkish nationalist ideology has even influenced it's foreign leaving the Kurdistan Region of Iraq within the crosshairs of the Turkish state too.

By utilizing previous research and exploring the historical issues relating to the matter, this article will explore the factors that have allowed the Kurds to survive and not to follow the same path as the Armenians and the Christians of the Greek Orthodox Church.

Furthermore, it will explore how Turkey has transitioned from a policy of "assimilating the Kurdish population into the Turkish one" to a system of massacres and ethnic cleansing. Surfing in the newly released digital sources of the Ataturk Library of the Istanbul Municipality.

Entering my usual keywords randomly to see what is out there in my areas of interest, I came across a diary of a Turkish soldier kept during the year 1938, while he was doing his compulsory military service.

Ego-documents are a rare source in Ottoman-Turkish studies in general, but the content of this particular diary made it unique and almost unreal beyond my wildest expectations, on an issue that I have studied since 1999.

This soldier served for two months in the sweeping stage of the genocide military operation carried out by the Turkish republic with the intent to resolve the “perennial Dersim Question” between 1937-1938.

As a final point, I would like to emphasize that as notes taken during bombardments and the aftermath of killings and village burnings, this diary has re-affirmed what the Dersimlis narrated for decades – yet from the opposing moral, political and emotional position.

While these entries give the reader the feeling of receiving blow after blow, they ironically also had a liberating impact on the survivors.

Not only carrying the physical and emotional marks of 1938, but also suffering from the trauma of denial and indifference, many of these survivors lived their lives with the burden of having witnessed and being boxed into 1938.

They could not get out of it, as one of them eloquently stated in his testimony. Shifting the narrative from the survivor to the perpetuator had the potential of relieving them of this life-long burden, and the potential of opening up public and personal spaces to deal with their trauma. It also enabled, as brief as it was, a conversation on past crimes, and the involvement of the wider public

Socialism is the Best Medicine Barri Zonema

Socialism refers to a specific stage of social and economic development that will displace capitalism, characterized by coordinated production, public or cooperative ownership of capital, diminishing class conflict and inequalities that spawn from such and the end of wage-labor with a method of compensation based on the principle of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution"

The aim of public ownership is to ensure that production is responsive to the needs and desires of the general population and that goods and services are distributed equitably.

Kurdish people have been fighting to survive for centuries. Recently, their struggles have become more militant, more global, and less isolated, aligning with other anti-racist and anti-colonial movements, and leading the environmental movement.

The growing challenge that Kurdish people pose to capitalist rule can be measured by the increasing use of military force to suppress their rebellions and by the targeted murders of Kurdish activists.

In Turkey, the portion of Kurdish people incarcerated in federal facilities rose from under 18 per cent in 2001 to over 30 per cent in 2020.

Kurdish women are just 4 per cent of the Turkish population, yet form an astonishing 42 per cent of all female prisoners in to turkey state custody.

Jineology is built on the principle that without the freedom of women within society and without a real consciousness surrounding women no society can call itself free."

https://sites.google.com/view/womens-liberation/

In Kurdish Rojava: Syria’s imperilled freedom fighters

In the midst of Syria’s bloody civil war, the Kurdish people have carved out an autonomous region in the country’s north called Rojava.

With a population of several million people, many of whom are refugees, it has been a haven for all those fleeing the Islamic State (Daesh) and dictator Bashar al-Assad, especially women, children and other persecuted ethnic minorities like the Yazidis.

For a radical and revolutionary freedom struggle, women's liberation must be a central aim, but also an active method in the process.

https://sites.google.com/view/rojovafighters/

The murder in Dersim was undoubtedly massive, indiscriminate and extremely brutal, but was it genocide? there was a deliberate intent to destroy potential rebels, and this was part of a general policy towards the Kurds.

Was the revolt suppressed by considerable extreme killing of thousands of women and children?

Young people from Dersim, who were serving in the Turkish army, were taken from their regiments and shot.

Most of the young women threw themselves into the Munzur water from the high cliffs in order not to fall into the hands of the Turkish soldiers.

Thousands of women and children died as a result of the conflict, and others were displaced within the exiled country.

The murder in Dersim was undoubtedly massive, indiscriminate and extremely brutal, but was it genocide?

Or was it simply the suppression of an armed revolt with considerable overkill? I will try to show that neither is.

Residents of Hozat town and Karaca tribe, thousands of rebellious women and children were brought near the military camp outside Hozat and killed with machine guns.

https://sites.google.com/view/cinayet-killings

The tradition of oral expression known as a dengbêjî, the job of a dengbêj – a ‘soundteller’– lies at the foundation of traditional Kurdish music and is the only path to survival of a language facing extinction.

For Kurds, being deprived of any written sources, this poetic artful style of lyrics and rhythm by the dengbêj was a unique method of preserving their language and culture to this day.

Many melodies sung in this tradition belonged originally to women. Although it was mostly women who have been using these melodies as a vehicle of self-expression, for instance to lament the loss of their sons and husbands in endless wars, it was always men who carried these works over to the dengbêj Divan (assembly).

Due to religious and other conservative traditions and beliefs, women could only raise their voice behind closed doors, silently. Music is one of the many fields in which Kurdish women fought countless battles to be a part of, but somehow they have managed to get their voices out from behind closed doors and deaf walls.

https://theatticmag.com/reports/2369/on-the-trails-of-a-banned-language.html

The PKK has been led from the start by Ocalan, a Turkish Kurd inspired by Marxism-Leninism in his university days in Ankara.

Inspired by Cold War proletarian revolutionary rhetoric, Ocalan sought to fight against the “repressive exploitation of Kurds” and establish a “democratic and united Kurdistan”.

A highly charismatic leader, Ocalan leads a grassroots movement uniting Kurds from different religious sects, countries, and cultures.

However, his espousal of terrorist tactics as well as his affiliations with unsavory organizations such as the militant Lebanese group Hezbollah earned the ire of the international world, and landed the PKK on the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) lists of a number of countries, including the United States.

After Syria expelled him along with other Kurdish rebels in 1998, Ocalan sought asylum in Russia, Italy, and Kenya before Turkish forces captured him in the Greek embassy in Kenya in early 1999.

A Turkish state security court sentenced him to death for treason, but following a surprisingly bold and public apology and renunciation of his cause, the sentence was commuted to life in solitary confinement.

Since his trial, he has been imprisoned on an island in the Marmara Sea, not far from Istanbul.

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