Kurdish journalist organisations Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG) and Mezopotamya Women Journalists Association (MKG), based in Turkey, and the Free Press Union (YRA), based in North and East Syria, condemned the killing of Kurdish journalist Aziz Köylüoğlu, who was killed in a Turkish drone strike on 27 January 2025 in the Ranya district of Sulaymaniyah (Silêmanî), Iraqi Kurdistan.
The YRA released a statement on the killing of Köylüoğlu, emphasising the important role the journalist played in building up press works within North and East Syria, highlighting that he was a teacher for many and that his works became the basis for a “school of the free press”. The statement was read in front of the Culture and Arts Centre in Qamishli (Qamişlo) with the attendance of dozens of journalists.
YRA remembered Köylüoğlu as a journalist who had started his career in 2000 and had worked in North and East Syria for many years, sharing the achievements of the so-called Rojava revolution with the world and exposing the Turkish military attacks onto the region. He worked as a journalist during the illegal occupation of Afrin by the Turkish state in 2018.
Whilst following his works, he also “gave education for press works to hundreds of young people in North and East Syria”, the statement continued and added that today “many students of martyr Aziz are working within the institutions of the free press in North and East Syria and are taking a vanguard role in these works”.
The DFG and the MKG also condemned the killing of Köylüoğlu, calling it an attack on press freedom. Their joint statement highlighted the grave conditions under which journalists are working in “Kurdistan, Turkey, the Middle East and the whole world”, which include targeted killings, detainments and killings.
“Within the last six month, five of our journalist friends have been killed. On 23 August 2024, Turkey killed the journalists Gulîstan Tara and Hêro Bahadîn with a drone strike in Sulaymaniyah. On 19 December 2024, Cîhan Bilgin and Nazım Daştan were killed in a drone strike on the road between Tishreen and Sarrin,” the statement read.
DFG and MKG said that “many of our friends were killed on the path of truth” and called on international press organisations and associations to bring attention to the killing and targeting of journalists. “We renew our promise to not leave the pens and cameras of our friends that were killed and imprisoned on the ground. Until now, the free press didn’t stay silent against any kind of attack, killing, arresting and detaining and will never be silent,” they concluded.
