Residents gathered to protest against a proposed copper mining project in the Kurdish-majority region of Lice (Licê) in Diyarbakır (Amed), Turkey on Saturday, vowing to protect their land and livelihoods.
Protesters carried banners with messages such as “Capitalists, hands off Lice” and “Our nature is our existence, we will not give up” in the demonstration organised by the Licê Nature Defence Collective, which took place in the rural areas of Zengesor, Heşeder, Mizag, Peçar, Bayırlı and Şaxur. The protest was supported by local politicians, environmental groups and professional associations.
Samet Ucaman, a former head of the Chamber of Agricultural Engineers, condemned the project as ecological destruction, stating that the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report was flawed. “This project is not just about mining — the whole thing is aimed at displacing the local population and manipulating the demographics of the region. We are fighting against this,” Ucaman explained.
Serhat Eren, a member of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party, stressed that the very means of survival of the local population, including agriculture and livestock farming, were at risk. “They want to push our people off these lands into the big cities, cutting their connection with their land, history, culture and language. We will not allow this. We will resist these mining projects to the very end,” Eren declared.
Zeki Kanay from the Diyarbakır Ecology Association spoke of the broader environmental degradation caused by industrial projects in the region. He pointed to the impact of dams constructed over the rivers, saying, “The Tigris and Euphrates no longer flow freely. These people first submerge our homes and then sell the water back to us for money.”
Ahmet İnan, a lawyer from the Diyarbakır Bar Association’s Environment and Urban Commission, stressed the importance of the affected area for the local community. The project, he explained, targets 700 hectares of forested land, as highlighted in the EIA report. “This project threatens not only the environment but also the eco-sociological structure of the region. We will not allow any initiative that seizes the rights of our people and those of nature,” he asserted.
