Light refreshments provided
12.45pm
Room Exchange 10
Manchester Central
Monday 10 September
150th TUC Congress fringe
Fighting fascism In The Middle East TUC Fringe
Speakers include:
Chair – Christine Blower – NEU International Secretary
Simon Dubbins – Unite Director of International
Manual Cortes – General Secretary TSSA
Tim Roache – General Secretary GMB
Elif Sarican – Kurdish Students Union
Stephen Smellie – Convenor of Scottish Solidarity with Kurdistan
The Kurds of Turkey, Syria and Iraq have been central to the fight against the extreme savagery of Daesh yet are now facing the barbarism of President Erdogan in his all-out war against the Kurds. In Turkey, Kurds face massive repression with Erdogan having ordered the arrest and detention of hundreds of thousands of opposition politicians, journalists, trade unionists, human rights activists and many others.
The brutal war on the Kurdish population has resulted in thousands murdered and cities destroyed. In Syria, Turkey has illegally invaded Afrin and committed acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing and atrocious human rights abuses against the Kurdish population, and in Iraq the Kurdish population live under the very real threat that Turkey will invade.
The situation is critical. Yet in Northern Syria the Kurds are developing a true progressive society that is centres on direct democracy, ecology, human rights and women’s liberation based on the teaching of the jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Join speakers who have seen the society working first-hand and discuss how trade unions can support the Kurds in defending women’s liberation, democracy and equality in an area ravaged by violence repression and persecution.
Fighting fascism in the Middle East – Ocalan, the Kurds and defending the women’s revolution.
Freedom for Abdullah Ocalan and the political prisoners in Turkey.
Ocalan’s freedom will mark a breakthrough for the democratization
of Turkey and peace in Kurdistan.
www.freedomforocalan.org
FREEDOM FOR OCALAN
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