Sarah Glynn On Monday, at the Turkish Parliament, the presidential candidate of the main opposition alliance, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) visited the leaders of the pro-Kurdish leftist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) for a much-anticipated discussion; and on Wednesday, the Labour and Freedom Alliance, centred on the HDP, which has been […]

Fréderike Geerdink Last week, nine SDF fighters died in a helicopter crash close to Duhok in the Kurdistan Region in Iraq. It’s considered a ‘mysterious’ incident.  I’ve been chewing on that word for a couple of days now, and come to the conclusion that it’s in fact not mysterious at all. For my work as […]

Sarah Glynn Delal Aydin is a visiting scholar in Turkish Studies at the university of Duisberg-Essen in Germany, who works on the political mobilisation of Kurds in Turkey. In this podcast interview, she describes how Newroz evolved from a spring equinox festival, celebrated for thousands of years in Iran and the surrounding region, to a […]

Abdullah Öcalan’s continued imprisonment in Turkey’s İmralı prison island lies at the heart of the legal, juridical and political crisis in contemporary Turkey, panellists stated at an online panel discussion organised by Medya News on Monday. The event, entitled ‘Öcalan, political prisoners, and legal reform in Turkey’, was occasioned by a January 2023 delegation of […]

Sarah Glynn There has been a trend in the branding industry for paring down logos. A casual glance would suggest that this trend had been followed by Turkey’s pro-Kurdish, leftist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP); however, reality is more complicated. The still very recognisable but simplified logo is the new symbol of the Green Left Party, […]

Selahattin Demirtaş, the jailed former co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), shared a letter on Saturday detailing the party’s demands ahead of an expected meeting between HDP officials and opposition parties’ presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. The meeting between the current HDP co-chairs and Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), […]

Robin Fleming After over a decade of war, crisis has penetrated every aspect of Syrian life: from the political and economic spheres down to the most fundamental aspects of infrastructure. These crises are frequently exacerbated by the meddling of foreign powers seeking to benefit and exploit the suffering of the Syrian people and nowhere is […]

Sarah Glynn Turkey’s elections – presidential and general – will be held on 14 May. President Erdoğan signed off the official order yesterday, but election manoeuvrings have long been under way, and this week’s news has been dominated by the pre-election tactics of the opposing players. While these may give the impression of a complicated […]

Amed Dicle As this article was prepared, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made the official announcement that the parliamentary and presidential elections will be held on 14 May. A day before, the Constitutional Court postponed the deadline for the Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (HDP) oral defence in the case to shut the pro-Kurdish party down, a […]

Erling Folkford Sometimes it is wise to look back a little before looking forward again. I think Palestinians and Kurds today are in such a situation. Because, after all, they have experience of working together and helping each other. The military coup in Turkey the 12th of September 1980 was to crush all left-wing opposition. […]

Matt Broomfield To those who primarily follow Turkish politics through the prism of the Kurdish issue, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s name may not be that familiar. But as Kılıçdaroğlu has now been nominated the official candidate of Turkey’s main opposition bloc, and will likely go head-to-head with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in epochal upcoming elections, it […]

Fréderike Geerdink The day after the match, the players bus of Amedspor arrived back home in Diyarbakır and the ‘table of six’ announced its presidential candidate, Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. It’s impossible to discuss one of these issues without the other. And it begs an answer to the question: if Kılıçdaroğlu wins […]

Robin Fleming International Women’s Day is a day for women around the world to celebrate their achievements, advocate for gender equality, and demand an end to gender-based violence. The occasion has become divorced from its roots in the labour movement as a day to celebrate women’s roles as workers, celebrated primarily by socialist governments, and […]

Sarah Glynn   Turkey’s Presidential Decree number 126, published on 24 February, is a disaster capitalists’ charter. As has been increasingly emphasised in the analysis of the 6 February earthquake, a large part of the blame for the appalling number of casualties must be taken by poor quality construction that did not comply with regulations; […]

Matt Broomfield Anyone familiar with the New Testament will recognize the name of Antioch. This storied city, known to some as “the cradle of Christianity”, was once the most important metropolis in the Roman Empire save only Alexandria and the imperial city itself. By the end of the 15th century, the city was all but […]

Sarah Glynn   Kurdish news has been dominated by the catastrophe of the earthquake, but other developments have not paused. The Iranian revolution is now into its sixth month, and, as protests and persecution continue, there have been attempts to give it clearer structure and a minimum programme. There is widespread agreement over what people […]

Fréderike Geerdink My attention was drawn this week to what appeared to be small news. It was a report shared by Pirha News Agency, which serves the Alevi community in Turkey, about Islamic children’s books that had been distributed in a camp for Alevi earthquake survivors who had become homeless. It made me realize once […]

Sarah Glynn This week, in response to the catastrophe of the earthquake, I have taken a break from my usual news review to write three separate articles on different aspects of this overpowering story. But for those who have come to expect a weekly podcast, I have also made an audio recording of all three. […]

Jürgen Klute While I am writing these lines, the number of reported dead has already risen to over 17,000. And the number is obviously still rising. The number of injured and the number of homeless is much higher, the destruction seen in photos is enormous. It seems that this earthquake was one of the strongest […]

Fréderike Geerdink It’s too early to draw conclusions. People are still begging for machines to help them rescue their loved ones from under the rubble, thousands and thousands of people are missing, and the ones who live hear the voices of their mothers, fathers, children, neighbours under the rubble – until they stop. The tragedy […]

Sarah Glynn Kurdish autonomy within Iraq was only achieved after decades of hard struggle. And, in 2017, an unrecognised referendum produced a nearly 93% vote for full independence. So, it is pretty startling to learn that a new survey in the region found that around half of their interviewees believe it would be better for […]

Amed Dicle Political instability in Iraq’s federal Kurdistan Region is gradually worsening. And it does not look as though intervention by international or regional forces would bring about positive outcomes. There are two main forces in the federal Kurdistan Regional capital Erbil. These are the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) led by the Barzani family, and […]

Sarah Glynn Human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. These are the founding principles that the Council of Europe was set up to defend, and once again Kurds have gathered outside the Council building in Strasbourg to call on them to apply these principles to the case of their imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan. Inside […]

Fréderike Geerdink Quite some anger and scornful laughter in my Twitter mentions this week. I had made a connection between the Turkish army making very young kids familiar with and enthusiastic about the military, and the often heard accusation against the Kurdish armed movement that they recruit child soldiers. “Turkey again does what it accuses […]

Sarah Glynn   It has dominated the region’s politics, offering the possibility of democratic change, but also of dictatorship, and it has provided motivation for oppression at home and aggression in other countries. Turkey’s election now appears to have a date and is expected to take place on 14 May. This crucial election – or, […]

Matt Broomfield In a report published at the beginning of 2023, influential US think-tank Crisis Group identified ten conflicts to watch around the world. The potential for a fresh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, on the basis of unresolved and mutually exclusive claims to the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, ranks second – just behind the ongoing […]

Robin Fleming The attention of the world, specifically Kurds and their allies, is on Turkey now. I am not alone in eagerly reading each new bit of information being released about the upcoming election. The fate of Turkey’s internal politics, the future of the Kurds throughout all parts of Kurdistan, and Turkey’s role in global […]

Fréderike Geerdink Kemal Kurkut, Abdurrahman Gök, the Şenyaşar family, Ali Ismail Korkmaz and a murdered member of the Grey Wolves tell us everything we need to know about the current state of Turkish politics. The situation is dramatic. The oldest case in this list is that of Ali İsmail Korkmaz, a 19-year-old man who was […]

Fréderike Geerdink Should I write a column about both Roboski massacre, which happened eleven years ago on the day I am writing this (28th December), and the murder of three Kurds last week in Paris? Should the intentional massacre by the Turkish state of 34 Kurdish civilians, mostly underaged, be in any way compared to […]

Fréderike Geerdink With the conviction of Istanbul mayor Imamoğlu on absurd charges and for political reasons, the alliance of which his party, the CHP, is a part of, has (seemingly) become more united. They strive to bring back the parliamentary system, which Erdoğan replaced by a presidential one, but for the rest, they don’t have […]

Matt Broomfield Parliamentary immunity is one cornerstone of a functioning parliamentary democracy, but Turkish prosecutors have long sought to chip away at this fundamental right. In the decades following the establishment of the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey in 1961 in the aftermath of the previous year’s coup d’état, Turkish prosecutors made 2,713 requests […]

Matt Broomfield This week brought the strongest declaration yet of United States opposition to Turkey’s mooted ground invasion of Kurdish-led North and East Syria (NES). In a call with his Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III shared his Department’s “strong opposition to a new Turkish military operation in Syria.” […]

Fréderike Geerdink Finally, after six years and six months, journalist Nedim Türfent from Gever (Yüksekova) was released from jail. He had completed his sentence for ‘membership of a terrorist organisation’, a crime he obviously did not commit. Good news? Of course. But is it enough? Of course not. Nedim Türfent is one of those Kurdish […]

Robin Fleming In the early hours of Sunday, 20 November, Turkey began intensive cross-border operations into North East Syria (NES). The Turkish Ministry of National Defense has claimed that Turkey is operating within their rights of ‘self defence’ according to Article 51 of the United Nations (UN) Charter. Turkey invokes their right of self defence […]

Kariane Westerheim The recent bombing in Istanbul, probably orchestrated by the Turkish secret services, has become a convenient pretext for Erdoğan and the AKP-MHP government as they launch their latest wave of assaults on Kurdish-led North and East Syria (NES), the Yazidi homeland of Sinjar, and northern Iraq. As Turkey’s economy and welfare have continued […]

Amed Dicle On 13 November, a bomb exploded on Istiklal Avenue, the busiest street in Istanbul. The bombing directly targeted civilians, killing six people and injuring dozens more. The media broadcast images from the scene minutes after the explosion, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made a statement shortly after, saying the incident “smells of […]

Matt Broomfield The Medya News website has been banned in Turkey, but with censorship targeting hundreds of thousands of web pages including sites like Wikipedia and YouTube plus the Western press, it’s clear Turkey’s programme of censorship is not limited to the Kurdish media. It will come as no surprise to Medya News readers to […]

Amed Dicle Below are four Kurdish guerrillas and the information the People’s Defence Forces (HPG) released about them upon their deaths in Turkey’s military operations in Iraqi Kurdistan. These young Kurds had all joined the guerrilla forces in relation to the Islamic State (ISIS) attacks against Kurds, Arabs and all other peoples of Iraq and […]

Fréderike Geerdink New accusations have been made against the Turkish army for the use of banned weapons in the war against the PKK. Inside Turkey, more people are beginning to speak out and ask questions. The reactions to their courage to speak out only adds to the urgency with which this issue needs to be […]

Sarah Glynn It feels as though our world has become the scene for a giant game of Risk in which the players have as little care for the results of their actions as they would if it were actually just a board game. What went wrong? How can our intelligent species have thrown up such […]

Kariane Westerheim Jîna Mahsa Amini was Kurdish, she was a woman and like most Kurds, was brought up in political environments in a politically aware family. Being a Kurd, a woman, and politically conscious is like waving a red cloth in front of the eyes of the clergy in Iran, and for that matter also […]

Michael Günter This commentary will only briefly discuss how the Report specifically defines liberal democracy: the Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) “combines the electoral ‘core’ institutions with the liberal aspects—executive constraint by the legislature and high courts, and rule of law and individual rights” (p. 13). It maintains that “this measure is among the most sophisticated […]

Michael M. Gunter Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – Turkey’s current president (elected 2014) and former prime minister (2003-2014) – infamously once declared that “democracy is like a train; you get off once you have reached your [real] destination.” In other words, one can use democratic means to achieve autocracy. Analyzing Erdoğan’s imaginary train journey, one must […]

Ertuğrul Kürkçü Yesterday’s column discussed how Kurdish gains in Syria had set Ankara and Damascus drifting toward reconciliation against a backdrop of devastation in the war-torn country. But how might the other players in the conflict react to Turkey’s shifting Syria policies? And, where does this leave the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria? The […]

Fréderike Geerdink Last night, KOBANÊ, the newest film of the Rojava Film Commune, had its premiere in Kobani. It must have been amazing to see it right there in the city where the legendary battle against the siege of Daesh took place a couple of years ago. Having seen the film already, at home on […]

Ertuğrul Kürkçü What could Kurds possibly gain from the “secret” negotiations between Ankara and Damascus, as lethal Turkish drone and artillery strikes continue targeting Kurdish inhabitants, including children and elderly, in the autonomous settlements across North and East Syria? Is there a chance that the talks pave the way for a new window of opportunity […]

Zozan Sima writes for Yeni Özgür Politika The Iranian morality police (Gasht-e-Ershad) beat to death a young Kurdish woman in the flush of youth, Jîna (Mahsa) Aminî, on the grounds that her hair was showing from under her headscarf. Throughout the centuries a woman’s hair has been seen as her crowning glory. It is a […]

Fréderike Geerdink Last night, KOBANÊ, the newest film of the Rojava Film Commune, had its premiere in Kobani. It must have been amazing to see it right there in the city where the legendary battle against the siege of Daesh took place a couple of years ago. Having seen the film already, at home on […]

Sarah Glynn For a large part of British media, Shamima Begum is the poster girl of evil: a woman who praised and colluded in unspeakable atrocities carried out by the Islamic State (ISIS). One of three London schoolgirls who ran away to Syria to become ISIS brides – and the only one of the three […]

Sarah Glynn While political pundits continue to debate the implications of Turkey’s U-turn towards President Assad, and to speculate on responses from the Syrian government and from the opposition groups that had been enjoying Turkish support, the cruel realities of life under Turkey’s authoritarian government continue to bite, both in Turkey itself and in the […]

Matt Broomfield Each time Turkey threatens a fresh invasion of the Kurdish-led autonomous regions in North and East Syria, it spreads a wave of panic through the Kurds’ friends and supporters in the West. The response is understandable. We all know what another invasion would mean. But during the years I spent in Rojava (Syrian […]

Fréderike Geerdink Is it smart of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to retaliate against Turkey across the border? Shouldn’t they retaliate against Turkish targets inside Syria, to circumvent the possibility that Turkey will use the retaliations as proof that the SDF attacks them? It’s yet another example of how the Kurdish struggle – armed and […]

Sarah Glynn On 15 August, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party – the PKK – marked 38 years of armed struggle against the Turkish state. The decision to take up arms is not one made lightly. It is a last recourse when all other options have been thwarted. 38 years on, the Turkish government continues to employ […]

Sarah Glynn   We see the staged handshakes in front of national flags, and read the official communiqués, but the life and death deals made behind closed doors we can only guess at. What was negotiated between Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan? How have the dynamics been impacted by the war in Ukraine? And […]

Sarah Glynn International leaders seem ever more ready to go to war: ready to resort to force in pursuit of their own power, and ready to accept military aggression by others as inevitable. The Turkish government, especially, has no qualms about seeking a military solution to every problem – including the problem of dwindling political […]

by Fréderike Geerdink The revolution in Rojava, or North and Northeastern Syria, has “completely refreshed my activism”, said writer and feminist Rahila Gupta in a new episode of Avaşîn podcast. After having waged a struggle against racism and sexism, mainly focused on trying to eradicate gender-based violence against women, in London for forty years, visiting […]

Sarah Glynn Ninety-nine years ago, the Palais de Rumine, in the Swiss city of Lausanne, witnessed the signing of a peace treaty between the remnants of the Ottoman Empire and the Allied victors of the First World War. This was the treaty that brought into being the new Turkish Republic, and that killed off hopes […]

Kariane Westrheim Northern Iraqi Kurdistan region is an attractive destination for travellers and tourists from central and southern parts of Iraq. The region’s beautiful mountains, waterfalls and streams have made it a favourite holiday destination. According to the two Jerusalem Post correspondents Seth J. Frantzman and Tzivi Joffre, Kurdistan Region was considered a major centre […]

Sarah Glynn On Wednesday afternoon, a group of tourists who had escaped the heat of the Iraqi plains for the cooler mountains of Duhok were enjoying a popular picnic spot in Zakho district when they came under attack from the nearby Turkish military base of Khatir. Four artillery strikes left nine people dead, including a […]

Sarah Glynn Anyone who cares about peace, democracy and human rights must worry about Turkey and the threat that the Turkish government poses to prospects of peace in the Middle East and beyond. While Turkey’s NATO allies obediently echo Turkey’s rhetoric about Turkey’s “justified security concerns”, despite the absence of any justification, Turkey daily attacks […]

Sarah Glynn To be considered for NATO membership, Sweden and Finland have been forced, by Turkey, to sign a memorandum that pits them against the Kurdish freedom movement and undermines their own purported democratic values. This is not just a hurdle to be overcome to allow them to join NATO. Crushing freedom movements is what […]

Sarah Glynn Benny Gustafsson could be a symbol of humanitarian Sweden: a retired headmaster who has dedicated his time and energy into making his small town a centre of support for Kurdish rights. Of course, this was only ever one version of Swedish life, but if the Swedish government is tempted to submit to President […]

Fréderike Geerdink Almost two dozen Kurdish journalists are in detention, their files have a ‘secret’ stamp marked on it, they are not informed about the charges against them and have not been taken to the prosecutor to have their statements taken. As rights violations are piling up again, I can’t help but think of the […]

Sarah Glynn As Turkish invasion threats continue to cast their shadow over northern Syria, and pundits dissect the latest statements to speculate on whether either the United States or Russia will do a deal to stand aside and let Turkish ground forces go in; as Turkish forces continue to pound the mountains of northern Iraq, […]

Writer Sarah Glynn evaluates the latest developments in Turkey, Middle East and Kurdistan.

Writer Akın Olgun looks at the coming Turkish general elections and the two main competing alliances, and notes also a third, the Alliance of Democracy, coming to the fore, stating that it presents a real alternative to the status quo.

Writer and politician Erling Folkvord looks at Turkey’s transfer of arms to jihadist groups in Syria and its ongoing support for ISIS, and the attitude of the US and NATO, appearing to oppose ISIS while actually supporting Turkey.

Fréderike Geerdink writes in her weekly article, “A 2014 photo of HDP MP Semra Güzel with PKK member during ‘peace talks’ has been deemed worthy of prosecution by the Turkish government.”

Sarah Glynn looks at how the US displays a complete absence of support for NE Syria in fighting ISIS, noting that they still remain silent about Turkey’s continued attacks on the region although it is clear Turkey itself supports ISIS.

Fehim Işık writes that the exposure of Turkish criminal elite Sedat Peker was caused by the failure of the National Security Council’s “destruction plan”, which the Kurds have resisted against and scuppered.

HDP’s Fayik Yağızay looks at the ongoing YouTube confessions of Sedat Peker, a mafia boss in Turkey and details the history of mafia connections with the Turkish state.

Sarah Glynn writes in her weekly review, “Everywhere that Turkey goes they bring in mercenary gangs of brutal jihadi fighters and consolidate their occupation with settlements of the jihadists’ families – and western governments hardly even comment.”

Fréderike Geerdink sees the same colonial powers at work in the Netherlands as she saw in Roboski and the same love and solidarity that offers hope for the future.

https://medyanews.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/18-03-21-AUDIO-ELIF-KAYA-EFRIN.wav Elif Kaya Three years has passed since the occupation of Afrin (Efrîn). Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave Afrin after 58 days of shelling from the ground and air by Turkish forces. They could not even say a last farewell to their lands before they left the city. They arrived in [...]

Kurdish affairs expert Frederike Geerdink suggests a planned scenario was spun out at Gare to allow Turkey to further criminalise the PKK and to justify the next phase of repression.  

Rojava, the women’s revolution, a grassroots anti-patriarchal, multi-ethnic, secular and ecologically sustainable democracy was the only true success story of the Arab Spring argues Rahila Gupta