Devastation wrought by the Turkish state in Sur, Diyarbakır.
Members of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) condemned massacres of Kurds by the Turkish state in a debate in the European Parliament on January 20.
Turkey
The following statement was issued by Women's Freedom Assembly (KÖM) in Turkey/North Kurdistan on January 18. Translation abridged from Jadaliyya.com.
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The Women’s Freedom Assembly is calling for your solidarity against the war and massacres that we have been living through for the past eight months.
Left-wing members of the European parliament have called on the European Union to pressure the Turkish government to immediately end its attacks against the Kurdish community in northern Kurdistan (southeast Turkey).
Artillery bombardment of Diyarbakır neighbourhood of Sur. Photo: Jinhahaber.link.
It is freezing cold in Amed, as the city of Diyarbakır is known to its residents. More than 10 centimetres of snow blankets the ground, something that happens only every three or four years. And at exactly this moment, fighting is escalating in Amed's old neighbourhood of Sur and in the cities of Cizre and Silopi, in Şırnak province.
About 70 people, mainly from the Australian Kurdish Association, organised a peaceful protest inside and outside the ABC Ultimo Centre on January 14. They were protesting against the national broadcaster's bias and slander against the Kurds, despite the Turkish government's attacks on Kurdish areas in Turkey and Syria.
Below is the speech given by Socialist Alliance member Dave Holmes to a Melbourne meeting and concert to mark the founding of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). About 400-500 people attended the November 28 event organised by the Kurdish Association of Victoria at the Kurdish House centre in Melbourne’s Pascoe Vale.
The following statement was released by the Australian Kurdish Association on December 22.
Let's Stand Against the Massacre in Kurdistan, Support the Kurdish People's Struggle for Freedom!
A meeting in Rojava's capital, Qamislo, of the Assyrian ethnic minority. Photo from www.robertgraham.wordpress.com.
Since the terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13, the world's leaders and media have predictably reminding the world that the attacks' perpetrator – ISIS – has declared war to the death against humanity.
ISIS would not deny this. Indeed, making this point was the reason it carried out the Paris attacks, which killed 129 people.
April 24, 1915, was the beginning of the slaughter 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in what is now Turkey. This set a dangerous precedent that has been copied and expanded upon by later despotic governments.
Despite its morbid place in world history, governments around the world, including major international powers, refuse to acknowledge that it ever happened.
The Turkish government has declared all-out war against the residents of the Kurdish-majority town of Silvan (Farqin) in Diyarbakir (Amed) province. The town has been under curfew and siege since November 2.
Artillery and military aircraft have been deployed by Turkish military and paramilitary forces. Residents have reported Arabic-speaking bearded terrorists — presumed to be ISIS — taking part in the attacks.
Hopes that such government violence would end after the November 1 Turkish elections have been shattered.
The following statement was released by the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) on November 12.
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