*updated with comments from protestors
Turkish security forces have attacked people gathered in the southeastern province of Şırnak for a march to Mount Judi to protest against environmental destruction on the mountain, Mezopotamya News Agency reported on Saturday.
Footage from Şırnak showed security forces using tear gas and water cannons to stop a convoy of cars carrying protestors.
The people gathered to protest against the severe deforestation in the mountainous areas of Şırnak province insisted on continuing their march, despite warnings not to from the gendarmerie, concluding their protest with a sit-in.
“They are cutting down the trees. Their aim is to drive the Kurdish people away. It is to decimate the landscape that Kurdish people live in,” said Berdan Öztürk, co-chair of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK), in a speech to the protestors.
“Particularly from an ecological point of view, a profit-seeking and predatory system has been destroying the nature in Turkey’s west, while with the strategy it employs in the Kurdish regions, that system is trying to completely remove the trees and the creeks for reasons of security,” said Naci Sönmez, a deputy chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) responsible of ecological affairs.
The demonstrators from different Kurdish-majority provinces gathered following a joint call by the HDP and the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) earlier this week for protests to express resistance against the ecological consequences of the ongoing clashes and security strategies in the region.
According to reports, in recent years deforestation has intensified around Mount Judi, located in Turkey’s Şırnak province bordering Iraq, where Turkey is conducting an offensive against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Turkish security forces have collaborated with village guards on extreme tree-cutting missions to cut down approximately 500,000 tons of trees in the restricted military areas, according to an exclusive report from Mezopotamya Agency. In 2021 alone, military logging destroyed approximately 8% of the region’s forests, Şırnak bar association figures indicate.
“They have no right to loot our nature. All Kurds should come together to stand against the looting of our nature,” protestor Mülkiye Naciye said to JinNews.
“This is no ordinary march,” said Hatice Durmuş. “The meaning and the importance of this march needs to be understood. They are trying to normalise the chopping of trees in the region. They are leaving our mountains bare,” she added.
There were also protestors from Ankara’s Middle East Technical University (METU), where students have been resisting against the construction of a new road that will pass through the university and surrounding forestry.
“We are here to oppose the destruction of the forest here and everywhere,” said Tuna Gözlügör, a METU student, adding that she and her friends had come from Ankara after hearing about the serious deforestation in the region.
“A tree has no country. A tree affects the whole world, the whole country. If you cut it down, you do not only affect the people living in that area,” said Umut Hasanoğlu, a biologist from METU.
While groups from Urfa, Antep, Adana, Mersin and Mardin provinces have come together to join the march, governors of some provinces took measures to prevent the demonstration on Saturday.
The governors of Diyarbakır and Hakkari in southeast Turkey imposed temporary bans on all demonstrations and similar activities in their provinces.
The police in Diyarbakır surrounded HDP branch headquarters in several districts, while restricting entry to and exit from the province, Cumhuriyet media said. Some 10 people were prevented by police from leaving the HDP and DBP buildings for 11 hours, to stop them from joining the march.
