An article by Nick Brauns, first published on 23 April in the German daily Junge Welt:
Shortly after the Turkish army began another invasion of the Kurdistan region of Iraq on the weekend, the Belgian police stormed the studios of two Kurdish television channels with hundreds of officers on Tuesday night. According to the Kurdish news agency ANF the studios of Stêrk TV and Medya Haber TV in Denderleeuw near Brussels were searched and computers were confiscated. In addition, the police cut cables and destroyed technical facilities, apparently in order to prevent the stations from operating. Security staff from the TV stations had to lie down on the ground during the searches, handcuffed.
The two satellite channels broadcast news and cultural programmes for a million-strong audience in Europe in the Kurdish language, which remains repressed in Turkey. They serve as a platform for Turkish political leaders. The European umbrella organisation of Kurdish organisations KCDK-E called on Tuesday “to protect our television stations and to defend against the suppression of the free press.”
Belgium has repeatedly criticised the Turkish government, as the country maintains a more liberal approach to the Kurdish freedom movement compared to Germany or France. In 2010, however, there was a major raid on Roj TV – the predecessor of Stêrk TV – as well as various Kurdish exile institutions based in Brussels, such as the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK), which had already faced accusations of support for terrorism.
But in 2020, the Court of Cassation in Brussels ruled that the country’s anti-terrorism law could not be applied to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), since it was not a terrorist organisation, but a party to an armed conflict.
In March, the Turkish Foreign Minister and former head of the secret services Hakan Fidan was in Belgium for political talks. Shortly afterwards, there were attacks by hundreds of supporters of the Turkish-fascist ‘Grey Wolves’ in several Limburg communities. The ‘Grey Wolf’ supporters set upon Kurds who were returning home in cars from a Newroz celebration. They were stopped and beaten up. In addition, the mob tried to set the house of a Kurdish family on fire.
The fascists were backed by the deputy mayor of Heusden-Zolder, Yasin Gül, who appeared on television accusing PKK supporters of provoking Turkish residents. The politician, who is of Turkish origin, has previously been expelled from the Flemish Christian Democratic Party because of his closeness to the ‘Grey Wolves’. It appears obvious that these lynchings – apparently orchestrated by the Turkish secret service – put pressure on the Belgian authorities to take more sharp action against the Kurdish institutions in exile.
The two channels spoke in a statement on Tuesday morning. They said that they see the action by the Belgian police as part of an “international concept of attack” against the Kurdish movement. The aim is to “silence the voice of the Kurdish people.”
At the same time as the raids in Belgium, nine journalists working for Kurdish opposition media were arrested in Istanbul and Ankara. The local Kurdish Community Centre was also searched by the police in Drancy, France, and several Kurds were arrested on Tuesday.
The fact that the police had seized history books at the Turkish Aegean city of Izmir’s book fair, as Medya News reported on Monday, because they hold the word “Kurdistan” in the title, fits into the overall picture.
The date of the Turkish-Belgian double strike against Kurdish media is of symbolic significance because Monday was Kurdish Journalism Day, which commemorates the publication of the first Kurdish-language newspaper entitled ‘Kurdistan’ on 22 April 1898 in Cairo.
Nikolaus Brauns is a German journalist. He is one of the two deputy editors-in-chief of Junge Welt. Brauns is a regular commentator on issues concerning the Kurdish Freedom Movement.
