Sarah Glynn
I want to focus this week on the Turkish state’s persistent attempt to erase Kurdish culture and Kurdish identity. But, of course, this is happening at a time when the whole region is in turmoil – so I will begin with a Kurdish perspective of the bigger geopolitical picture after Israel’s assassinations in Lebanon and Iran. As the Middle East holds its breath, and experts and amateurs tap out long speculations of what might happen next in this most volatile part of the world, I will attempt to highlight particular threats facing the region’s Kurds, without attempting too much crystal ball gazing.
Besides general concerns over the spread of the fighting into new areas and countries, there are worries about the impact of the different alliances and power struggles being played out across the region. Kurds have suffered in all the four main countries that have control over their homeland – Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria – but the trigger for more difficulties now could be their relationship with the United States. America provided vital air support when the Kurds in Syria were fighting for their existence against ISIS, and the continued presence of US troops in North and East Syria prevents Turkey from carrying out another ground invasion. Their tactical alliance with the United States has provided the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria with a lifeline, but it has also tied them, practically and very visually, to a country that is increasingly hated. The United States is hated not only for its own bullying and predatory practices, but also for its unconditional support for Israel, even as Israel commits horrific war crimes and genocide. Other regional actors want to see American forces leave both Syria and Iraq.
Earlier in Israel’s war, Iraqi militias in Iran’s Axis of Resistance attacked American bases in Syria and Iraq, and America retaliated. On Tuesday – not long after Israel assassinated a senior member of Hezbollah in Beirut, and the day before Israel assassinated the political head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, as he visited Tehran – the United States carried out a pre-emptive strike against pro-Iranian militias that are part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Units, and killed four people. The US claim that the militias were preparing to launch attack drones – the militias claim the drones were from non-military purposes.
Already a week ago, in Syria, Iran-backed militias launched missiles at the US base in the Conoco gas field in Deir ez-Zor, prompting American retaliation.
The United States has denied all knowledge of Israel’s plans for Haniyeh’s assassination, but Iran does not accept their denial. They told the UN Security Council “This act could not have occurred without the authorisation and intelligence support of the US”.
On Thursday, the day after Haniyeh’s death, Scharo Maroof observed on Twitter, “US bases and forces in Syria have been put on high alert. SDF [the Syria Democratic Forces of the Autonomous Administration] has deployed additional forces to protect the bases. IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp] militias in [Syrian] regime held Deirezzor have been put on high alert.”
As we wait to see how Iran responds, I will move from the high drama of hot conflict to Turkey’s century-long grinding down of Kurdishness, which has itself developed a new intensity.
Dancing classified as ‘promoting terrorism’
When Kurds celebrate, they dance. Anyone who has seen videos of Kurdish gatherings, or even of Kurdish fighters, will be familiar with the lines of men and women moving energetically together. But dance videos are now being use as “evidence” to detain the dancers and prosecute them for promoting “terrorism”.
I recorded last week how a group of young men in Mersin were detained for dancing halay (or Govend in Kurdish) on the beach. This detention has become part of a trend – and Kurds have responded by defiantly posting more dance videos. The Mersin dancers were accused under counter-terrorism law of making propaganda for the organisation – meaning the PKK – with the authorities emphasising that they were dancing to revolutionary songs and making revolutionary slogans. These detentions were followed by the detention of six people at Ağri, six more in Siirt, at least 18 in Istanbul, seven in Hakkâri, and seven in Dicle, all for dancing or playing music at weddings, while a man on military service in Aydın was also detained for dancing. Several of those detained were subsequently arrested.
Yeni Özgür Politika explains that the Turkish state “know that halay (govend) is the Kurds’ symbol of resistance. The slogans chanted while dancing halay and the excitement experienced are the reflection of this resistance consciousness… Let’s dance with the slogans of Bijî Serok Apo [Long live leader Öcalan] and Bijî Berxwedana Gerîla [Long live the guerrilla resistance], which reach millions. Isn’t this also a form of political action? Let’s not be silent, let’s not stop. Let’s multiply by dancing, halay will lead us to freedom.”
A statement put out by 14 bar associations last Saturday read, “the frenzy of detentions and arrests carried out over halay videos has no place in a democratic state governed by the rule of law. These decisions, which serve no other purpose than weakening the existing fragile social peace, should be abandoned and the judiciary should adopt a protective stance with respect to fundamental rights and freedoms and not become a party to the lynching atmosphere of social media.” Many activists have referenced court rulings, including by the European Court of Human Rights, that make clear that reciting slogans such as “Bijî Serok Apo” (which was specifically mentioned in the Mersin detentions) and “PKK is the people, the people are here” is protected by rules on freedom of speech.
The pro-Kurdish leftist DEM Party has protested the arrests with dancing outside party offices in different districts, claiming “our culture is our honour”. They have been joined by social organisations and local citizens. DEM Party spokesperson Ayşegül Doğan noted, “If the essence and even the summary of our politics can be reduced to a single sentence, it is stubbornness, persistence, not giving up, and struggle.” On Tuesday, 14 people were taken into custody in Van, including the DEM Party’s provincial co-chairs.
For the Kurdish Freedom Movement “resistance is life”; and life – as in a full free life – comes through resistance to the forces that would restrict the freedom of expression of cultural identity and political will. Resistance to this oppression has become interwoven into Kurdish life and a central thread of every celebration, from Newroz, the Kurdish New Year, to Kurdish weddings. Abdullah Öcalan and the PKK are central to this resistance, not just through their physical actions, but through their development of what might be described as a Kurdish renaissance. This is recognised in the way that Öcalan’s birthday is celebrated as the birthday of modern Kurdish political consciousness. The PKK have resisted not only the military forces of the Turkish state, but the state’s attempt to coopt Kurds into the rejection of their own culture. The freedom movement, and its songs, has itself become an integral part of that culture, in the same way as rebel songs are part of Irish culture.
Rules and regulations have varied over the decades, but the Turkish republic has always clamped down on expressions of Kurdish culture, with or without any political content. Plays and concerts are frequently banned – often at the last minute – and education in the mother tongue has never been permitted. The Turkish parliament recently prevented a DEM Party Deputy from even asking a written parliamentary question about this. Among the many abuses suffered by political prisoners is the holding back of Kurdish letters, books, and newspapers.
Blacking out Kurdish
Currently, the language struggle is quite literally being played out on the streets. In Kurdish majority cities that have elected DEM Party councils, instructions to slow down and give pedestrians priority have been repainted on the tarmac in Kurdish. These painted words, along with Kurdish signs, had been removed when the municipalities were taken over by government trustees. But the new Kurdish instructions are being painted out again. A week ago, in Van, a 16-year-old painted over the Kurdish words with the slogan “Turkey is Turkish, it will stay Turkish” – after being assured by a police officer that he would suffer no significant repercussions. The state-appointed Governors then sprang into action and ordered the erasure of the Kurdish signs in Diyarbakir, Mardin, and Batman.
This has not been allowed to happen without protest. Politicians took the fight to Istanbul, stencilling “Pêşî Peya” – Priority to Pedestrians – in front of a crossing on Cengiz Topel Street.
Fifteen bar associations have responded with a call for an investigation into those who have destroyed the signs, stating that intolerance to the language of millions of Kurdish citizens was damaging social peace. “There is no legal obstacle to the writing of signs and texts indicating traffic rules and warnings in languages other than Turkish,” they wrote. ‘Having traffic warnings and signs in the native language of the people living in a city does not undermine the purpose of the regulation. On the contrary, it effectively contributes to the desired traffic safety.”
More anti-Kurdish oppresion
Meanwhile, protests against the deposing and jailing of the elected mayor of Hakkâri, and his replacement with a government trustee, are now in their eighth week. In Şırnak, 13 people are being investigated for singing the Kurdish anthem, “Herne pêş”, at an anti-trustee protest at the end of June.
For the police, just being Kurdish can be seen as an invitation to mistreatment. In the Yüksekova district of Hakkâri, eight young people were detained on Wednesday evening in one of the major police blockades that plague Kurdish regions. Two were released soon afterwards, but the remaining six were dropped off in different places in the small hours of the morning, their clothes blooded by police beatings. One later reported, “They asked me, ‘Where is Kurdistan?’ I told the police, ‘You know better.’ Thereupon, I was beaten again and again.” He stated that he heard the police officers say to their superiors, “I think we should shoot them in the head and throw them here, we will all be saved. Besides, no one will know that we killed them.”
The DEM Party is currently campaigning on “bread and justice” – combining the struggle against the crushing of rights and against the distortion of judicial practice with the basic struggle for economic survival that so many people in Turkey are now forced to go through.
Defending the Constitution
One Turkish state institution that still maintains some integrity is the Constitutional Court – which is why the court has been under attack from the government. This week, the Constitutional Court ruled that a man fined under terrorism legislation on the basis of his T-shirt had been denied the right to free expression. The T-shirt sported the word Kurdistan and the flag with the Mesopotamian Sun emblem between red and green stripes.
In the case of Can Atalay, who was elected as a member of parliament for the Turkish Workers’ Party (TİP) when remanded in prison for his involvement in the 2013 Gezi Park protests, the Constitutional Court’s ruling that he must be released to take up his parliamentary role was ignored by the lower courts. The Parliament then voted to revoke his seat and his political immunity from prosecution. The Constitutional Court has now published their ruling that that parliamentary vote was null and void, and Atalay’s lawyers have filed a new application for his release.
The United Nations Committee Against Torture
Turkey has recently been the subject of an inquiry by the United Nations Committee Against Torture, who published their findings and recommendations a week ago. Much to Turkey’s anger (the UN website includes their rebuttal letter), the UN acknowledged Turkish government responsibility for a catalogue of abuses that were presented to them, and that contravene the UN Mandela Rules for the treatment of prisoners.
Concerns raised in the report include: restrictions on proper access to lawyers; long isolation in individual cells, amounting to de facto solitary confinement; problems with access to medical care; lack of independence of the boards reviewing parole; the especially harsh regime for those facing aggravated life imprisonment; counter-terrorism legislation that limits basic legal safeguards; allegations of violent policing, arbitrary violations of the right to freedom of assembly, harassment of human rights defenders and journalists, and the use of disciplinary punishments to prevent lawyers visits; severe regression in judicial independence; refusal of permission to publish the reports of the last three visits made by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT); and failure to provide comprehensive data.
The UN’s own brief summary of their report especially highlights their alarm over the regime of aggravated life imprisonment, and states that, “The Committee was particularly concerned about the situation of prisoners Abdullah Öcalan, Hamili Yıldırım, Ömer Hayri Konar and Veysi Aktaş, currently held in İmralı Prison, who have been unable to contact their families or lawyers since March 2021. The Committee recommended that the State party [i.e. Turkey] consider abolishing the penalty of aggravated life imprisonment and immediately facilitate contact between prisoners held in İmralı Prison and their families and legal representatives.”
Rezan Sarıca, one of Öcalan’s lawyers, commented to Mezopotamya Agency that “the voice we wanted to hear from the CPT has come from the UN in a way… The fact that such an attitude has come from the UN against the CPT’s silence on İmralı actually shows that the CPT does not act in accordance with international standards and does not act in accordance with international conventions.”
He again pointed out that the CPT could do more – that they have the possibility to make a statement on Öcalan’s situation like they made a statement on Azerbaijan when not given permission to publish their report there. And he emphasised the importance of highlighting the UN’s findings, noting that the lawyers have also, separately, made applications to the UN’s Rapporteurs.
Sarıca observes that “Even talking about the isolation in İmralı today is a problem,” But that “the source of the bans, torture cases and this order devoid of law in Turkey stems from the isolation system in İmralı and the silence towards it.”
Censorship
While I was writing about all these attacks on the freedoms of Turkish citizens, news came in that the day after President Erdoğan’s Director of Communications had condemned Instagram for censoring condolence messages for Haniyeh, Turkey was censoring and blocking Instagram. This applies to all users except, it seems, Erdoğan himself, who tactlessly put out a “Happy Friday” message on his own Instagram account. The Constitutional Court has now annulled the presidential decree that was used to carry out this censorship, on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.
Turkey in Syria and Iraq
The intensified pressure on Kurdish cultural expression coincides with an intensification of Turkish military action against the Kurds in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and continued military pressure on the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
An indication of what it means to live with Turkey’s war of attrition on North and East Syria was provided by a Firat News Agency report from the Manbij countryside last Saturday. It describes three different Turkish-backed mercenary groups attempting to infiltrate villages in the middle of the night. Local fighters in the Manbij Military Council responded, killing and wounding the attackers and driving them back. But Turkish mortar attacks on other villages injured a family with four children.
In the parts of Syria that Turkey has occupied, daily life is controlled by mercenary groups who exploit the land and people with complete ruthlessness. In occupied Afrîn, 28 people were kidnapped for ransom in July; and hectares of forest are being wilfully destroyed. Trees are now being burned so that mercenaries can sell off the charcoal.
Leaders of two of these brutal mercenary gangs, the Hamzat Division and the Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade, have recently been in Turkey. They shared photographs of themselves being received by Erdoğan’s coalition partner, Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), and (separately) by Bahçeli’s friend, the mafia boss Alaettin Cakici.
In the northern mountains of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, far away from international media, Turkey is continuing to expand their control over the region. Community Peacemaker Teams reports that a further four villages have been emptied out, with villagers given just nine hours to gather up their belongings – including bee hives. Turkey is being helped in its occupation by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and KDP officials were instrumental in clearing the villages.
The KDP is also accused of supressing criticism and jailing journalists. The latest victim is Roj News Arabic editor Süleyman Ahmet, who was disappeared for 211 days after being abducted by the KDP in October, and has now been given a three-year prison sentence.
Ten years on from the Yazidi Genocide
Today it is exactly ten years since the start of the ISIS genocide of the Yazidis in Şengal (or Sinjar), in north-west Iraq. Over 5,000 men and elderly were murdered, over 6,000 women and children were captured, and 400,000 people had to flee their homes. 2,800 people are still unaccounted for, and over 180 thousand people are still displaced, with the vast majority living in IDP camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. These camps were threatened with closure at the end of July by Iraq’s federal government, but the deadline has been extended a little to the end of the year. The reconstruction of Şengal has been minimal, and Turkish attacks further discourage people from returning. International intervention has become embroiled in politics, with the United Nations endorsing a plan that ignored Yazidi views – and the strong Yazidi wish for autonomy – in favour of handing control to the Iraqi Federal Government and the KDP-dominated Kurdistan Regional Government – the two forces that abandoned the Yazidis to ISIS ten years ago.
I will end with an update on the Kurdish activist trapped in Serbia after the refusal of Turkey’s Interpol request to have him extradited. In a reminder that bureaucratic cruelty is by no means restricted to Turkey, Ecevit Piroğlu, who spent three years in detention in Serbia, has been told he must leave the country, but was forbidden to board the Austrian Airways flight that was booked to take him to Jordan. Serbia and Austria blame each other for the prohibition.
Sarah Glynn is a writer and activist – check her website and follow her on Twitter
