Matt Broomfield
Kurdish journalists, activists and political representatives have been included on the United States of America’s no-fly list, research by Medya News has found. The inclusion on the FBI watchlist of Kurdish journalists such as Medya News correspondent and former News Director of shuttered Kurdish news agency DIHA, Omar Çelik, suggests Turkey is able to exert active influence on US security policy.
This is despite the fact Kurdish journalists on the list have launched successful appeals against abuses of fundamental rights in the course of terror trials in Turkey in the European Court of Human Rights, and been defended by the Committee to Protect Journalists. More broadly, as of 2022 Turkey is the world’s fourth-largest jailer of journalists. The Erdoğan government’s use of terror laws to target the parliamentary opposition, journalists has met with global condemnation, raising questions about the de facto inclusion of legally-exonerated Kurdish journalists on the list.
At least one Kurdish lawyer, former members of the Turkish parliament, and the director of a Kurdish film festival in Italy are also included in the 2019 version of the no-fly list exposed by a Switzerland-based hacker, who found the database containing over 1.5 million entries on an unsecured server.
The findings by Medya News’ Matt Broomfield corroborate and build upon research by the Kurdish Peace Institute, focusing on a number of Kurdish political representatives included on the list despite representing political and military institutions in North and East Syria formally associated with the US-led International Coalition to Defeat ISIS and regularly meeting with US officials.
As the KPI’s research indicates, Syrian Kurdish leaders Salih Muslim and Asya Abdullah have also been included on either the no-fly list or a second list of 250,000 names selected for additional security screening at the airport. Medya News also identified a ban on Aldar Xalil, a third prominent figure in the Kurdish-led polity globally recognised for its leading role in the struggle against ISIS.
The fact these figures are included on the watchlist turns the spotlight on US foreign policy. The USA is partnered the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria and Syrian Democratic Forces on the ground in the struggle against ISIS, but allows Turkey’s definition of Kurdish-led political bodies as ‘terrorist’ to exert a de facto influence on its domestic policy. All of the individuals included on the ban list are part of the region’s civilian rather than military leadership, highlighting the USA’s refusal to engage with its allies on a political and civil rather than military plane.
Prominent Syrian Kurdish leaders like Salih Muslim are also included on the list, even though they regularly meet and work with US officials during the ongoing struggle against ISIS
Other Kurdish journalists, such as Ferda Çetin and Erdoğan Sürgeç, are also included on the list, in some cases despite having won legal battles against Turkey in the ECHR to clear their names. Kurdish political representatives in Europe also appear across both lists, with Nilufer Koç and Adem Uzun of Kurdish umbrella group the Kurdistan National Congress singled out for additional questioning.
At times, the listings appear to indicate that the US is failing to regularly update its databases, raising questions about the degree of oversight when adding or keeping names on the list. Two prominent Kurdish women’s activists, Sakine Cansiz and Leyla Soylemez, are still included in the 2019 version of the list. Both women were shot dead in Paris in 2013 in an attack which made headlines across Europe, given the assailant’s links to the Turkish intelligence services.
Similarly, at least two former volunteers with the US-backed Kurdish forces which combatted ISIS, including one US national, are included on the enhanced security list. The other foreign volunteer identified by Medya News, UK national Jamie Janson, killed himself after returning to the UK in the aftermath of an arrest – without charge – on the basis of his activities in Syria. Again, the findings raise questions as to whether it is necessary or proportionate to restrict the rights and civil liberties of volunteers fighting a common enemy alongside the US Armed Forces.
Turkey has arrested dozens of journalists in recent years, making it among the world’s worst abusers of press freedom
With a controversial ‘state of emergency’ recently declared following the deadly earthquake which has claimed over 35,000 lives in Turkey alone, the Erdoğan government’s widespread use of terror laws to target journalists and the political opposition continues to meet with criticism. At least 11 MPs have been jailed under terror laws, as the government moves to ban the country’s third-largest party outright, along with dozens of journalists and thousands of rank-and-file party members, lawyers and opposition activists. As of 2022, a swathe of dozens of arrests of Kurdish journalists means Turkey ranks only behind China, Iran and Myanmar in terms of the number of reporters it has put behind bars.
The new findings over the FBI no-fly list highlight the extent to which Turkey’s attempts to both liquidate domestic parliamentary opposition and stifle the opposition media are allowed to influence US domestic policy, apparently with little oversight.
Matt Broomfield is a freelance journalist, poet and activist. He writes for VICE, Medya News, the New Statesman and the New Arab; his prose has been published by The Mays, Anti-Heroin Chic and Plenitude; and his poetry by the National Poetry Society, the Independent, and Bare Fiction. His work was displayed across London by Poetry on the Underground, and he is a Foyle Young Poet of the Year.
