Thousands of Kurds took to the streets of Lausanne, Switzerland on Saturday 27 July to protest the Treaty of Lausanne on its 101st anniversary. Under the slogan “Expand the resistance against Turkey’s occupation attacks in South Kurdistan”, the protesters spoke out against the ongoing Turkish incursion into Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI).
The protest was organised by 36 Kurdish organisations and parties, including the Iraqi Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (YNK), the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) and the Iranian Kurdish Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK).
With the Treaty of Lausanne, the victorious powers of World War I enforced the quadripartition of Kurdistan on 24 July 1923. Since then, Kurds have been subjected to genocide, assimilation and massacres under the sovereignty of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.
The protests took place to highlight the ongoing and severe consequences of the Treaty of Lausanne for the Kurdish people, as it is seen as the basis for the imposed political and legal nonexistence of the Kurdish people.
“The Treaty of Lausanne laid the foundation for a tragedy that manifested itself in a genocidal policy that claimed tens of thousands of lives,” said Zübeyde Zümrüt, co-chair of the European Kurdish Democratic Societies Congress (KCDK-E). “This trail of blood of colonialism continues to the present day, and we are still fighting against it,” she added.
Showing the impact that the Treaty of Lausanne has to this day, Zümrüt made clear that “The more than 100-year-old policy of denial and genocide continues in the occupation attacks by the Turkish state in South Kurdistan, in the invasions in Rojava and in the total isolation of Abdullah Öcalan on the prison island of Imrali.”
Swiss MP Laurence Fehlmann Rielle called the Treaty of Lausanne “responsible for the tragedy in Kurdistan” and demanded the conditions of imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan to be internationally recognised as torture, stating that “the international community must take responsibility in this point”. She also expressed her recognition for the 69 Nobel Prize laureates that have recently published a letter expressing concern about Öcalan’s condition and demanding an end of his isolation.
Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) representative Zübeyir Aydar reaffirmed his determination to fight against the “colonial borders drawn by the Treaty of Lausanne” and drew attention to the resistance of the Kurdish guerrilla fighters against the Turkish Armed Forces in Iraqi Kurdistan, saying that “The guerrilla is defending all of us and we need to support them in every way that we can.”
