1. Kurdish women prepare to protect their gains in Syria
  2. Painting with honey, fruits and blood
  3. Today a NATO country sentenced this woman to nearly two years in jail for journalism
  4. Turkey: Riot police fire tear gas at banned women’s day rally
  5. Women in Berlin: Be the voice of hunger strikers’ mothers!
  6. Women wearing white head scarves rallied in Cologne
  7. Kurdish politicians urge protesters to spare own lives in Turkey
  8. Faster Aydın: Let’s spread the resistance everywhere!
  9. Investigation into Turkish MIT’s role in Paris killings – UPDATED
  10. After surviving ISIS and a civil war, these Syrian women built a female-only village
  11. Kurdish women scarred by state violence in Turkey’s southeast – report
    12. Kurdish women’s experience of state violence in Turkey
  12. Yazidi spiritual council would welcome children of ISIS rape victims, revokes earlier statement
  13. Kurdish women prepare to protect their gains in Syria

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2 May/Deutsche Welle

VIDEO
In northern Syria, Kurds have carved out an autonomous region. But with the US decision to pull its troops out, the region is under threat from the Assad regime and from Turkey. Some women in the town of Derrick are preparing for a possible attack.

https://www.dw.com/en/kurdish-women-prepare-to-protect-their-gains-in-syria/av-48577446

 

  1. Painting with honey, fruits and blood

13 April/New Internationalist

Zehra Doğan knew she could get arrested if she went to Nusaybin, Turkey. She had been warned.

After three years of peace negotiations, the 40-year-long conflict between Turkey and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) had broken out again in the south-eastern region in 2015, and Nusaybin – located on the Turkish-Syrian border – was caught in the crossfire. Some 3,000 civilians lost their lives.

https://newint.org/features/2019/04/13/painting-honey-fruits-and-blood

 

  1. Today a NATO country sentenced this woman to nearly two years in jail for journalism

15 May/The Canary

Today is 15 May. And a Kurdish journalist in Turkey was facing seven years and six months in prison for doing her job. Seda Taşkın worked at the Mesopotamia News Agency for four years. Last night, Taşkın told The Canary:

Tomorrow I have a court hearing to decide whether I will be detained or free.

But at her court hearing, she was sentenced to one year, 11 months and 10 days in jail. Although the sentence has been “deferred”.

https://www.thecanary.co/feature/2019/05/15/today-a-nato-country-sentenced-this-woman-to-nearly-two-years-in-jail-for-journalism/

  1. Turkey: Riot police fire tear gas at banned women’s day rally
    8 March/DeutscheWelle
    Attempts to ignore a ban on demonstrations by staging a massive International Women’s Daymarch on Istanbul’s central pedestrian shopping street have been met with a heavy-handed response by Turkish authorities.
    Tens of thousands of demonstrators, most of whom were women, gathered at Istiklal Street on Friday but were confronted with cordons and a large police presence. The marchers were there to denounce violence against womenand demand greater rights.
    https://www.dw.com/en/turkey-riot-police-fire-tear-gas-at-banned-womens-day-rally/a-47832283
  2. Women in Berlin: Be the voice of hunger strikers’ mothers!
    11 May/ANF English
    The action was promoted by the Alliance of the Internationalist Feminists together with DESTDAN Berlin Women’s Council, Edesa Women’s Council and the Socialist Women’s Association (SKB) and took place at Kreuzberg Heinrichplatz. The women carried photos of the hunger strikers and TJK-E flags and called on people “to be the voice of the mothers”.
    https://anfenglish.com/women/women-in-berlin-be-the-voice-of-hunger-strikers-mothers-34892
  3. Women wearing white head scarves rallied in Cologne
    9 May/ANF News
    Women wearing white head scarves protested the Turkish police attacks on mothers in front of the Turkish Consulate in Cologne.
    The women were protesting the new attacks on mothers organising sit-in to draw attention to the hunger strike resistance carried out by their sons and daughters in prisons.
    https://anfenglish.com/news/women-wearing-white-head-scarves-reallied-in-cologne-34865
  4. Kurdish politicians urge protesters to spare own lives in Turkey
    27 March/Al Monitor
    Kurdish politicians have called on prisoners to stop taking their own lives after a spate of suicides and an ongoing hunger strike while the Turkish government refuses to meet their demands.
    https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/03/kurdish-politicians-urge-end-hunger-strike-turkey.html#ixzz5o5YbrMkG
  5. Faster Aydın: Let’s spread the resistance everywhere!

11 May/ANF English

One of the prisoners who turned the hunger strike into death fast on 30 April is Şükran Aydın. She is in Bakırköy Women’s Closed Prison. In a message conveyed to her family Şükran Aydın said that “every place should be converted into resistance and action area” to support the hunger strike and death fast.
https://anfenglish.com/news/death-faster-aydin-let-s-spread-the-resistance-everywhere-34895

  1. Investigation into Turkish MIT’s role in Paris killings – UPDATED
    15 May/ANF English
    PKK founding member Sakine Cansız, KNK representative Fidan Doğan and Kurdish Youth Movement member Leyla Şaylemez were murdered in the heart of French capital Paris in January 2013.
    Reports say an investigation has been launched on the role the Turkish intelligence service MIT played in the massacre.
    https://anfenglish.com/news/investigation-into-turkish-mit-s-role-in-paris-killings-34979
  2. After surviving ISIS and a civil war, these Syrian women built a female-only village
    3 May/Keyt News
    Fatma Emin’s life changed forever when her husband died in the Syrian war, killed by ISIS in a land mine attack. It triggered a series of events that would bring her to Jinwar, a village built and inhabited by women — a refuge for Syrian women and their children fleeing a rigid family structure, domestic abuse and the horrors of civil war.
    https://www.keyt.com/news/national-world/after-surviving-isis-and-a-civil-war-these-syrian-women-built-a-femaleonly-village/1075094299
  3. Kurdish women scarred by state violence in Turkey’s southeast – report
    2 May/Ahval
    Turkish security forces subjected Kurdish women to rape threats and abuse and denied them access to medical care during the long curfews in southeast Turkey from late 2015 to early 2016, often leaving deep psychological scars, said a reportby the Istanbul-based Migration Monitoring Association.
    Fierce urban fighting broke out across the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey in late 2015 when the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) declared autonomy in parts of many cities and its youth wing erected barricades to troops out. The army responded by shelling the areas with tank and artillery fire and sending in special forces to crush the insurrection.
    https://ahvalnews.com/turkey-kurds/kurdish-women-scarred-state-violence-turkeys-southeast-report
  4. Kurdish women’s experience of state violence in Turkey
    30 April/Open Democracy
    As more than two years have passed after the military operationby the Turkish state in the predominantly Kurdish-populated southeastern provinces, a report published by the Migration Monitoring Association (GÖÇ-İZ-DER), based in Istanbul, reveals new details in the experiences of civilians, in particular women, during that period.
    https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-africa-west-asia/kurdish-womens-experience-of-state-violence-in-turkey/
  5. Yazidi spiritual council would welcome children of ISIS rape victims, revokes earlier statement
    28 April/EKURD
    The Yazidi (Ezidi) Supreme Spiritual Council has retracted an earlier statement where it said it would welcome back children born to Yazidi women due to rape by Islamic State members.
    https://ekurd.net/yazidi-spiritual-children-rape-2019-04-28

Peace in Kurdistan

Campaign for a political solution of the Kurdish Question

Email: estella24@tiscali.co.uk

www.peaceinkurdistancampaign.com

Contacts Estella Schmid 020 7586 5892 & Melanie Gingell – Tel: 020 7272 7890

Fax: 020 7263 0596

Patrons: John Austin, Christine Blower, NUT International Secretary, Prof Bill Bowring, Julie Christie, Noam Chomsky, Jeremy Corbyn MP,  Prof Mary Davis, Lord Dholakia, Simon Dubbins, UNITE International Director,  Jill Evans MEP, Lindsey German, Convenor STWC, Melanie Gingell, Rahila Gupta, Nick Hildyard, Dafydd Iwan, Former President Plaid Cymru, James Kelman, Bruce Kent, Jean Lambert MEP, Elfyn Llwyd, Aonghas MacNeacail, Scottish Gaelic poet, Mike Mansfield QC, Doug Nicholls, General Secretary, GFTU, Dr. Jessica Ayesha Northey, International Coordinator, Green Party of England and Wales; Sinn Fein MLA Conor Murphy, Dr Thomas Jeffrey Miley, Kate Osamor MP, Margaret Owen OBE, Gareth Peirce, Maxine Peake, Lord Rea, Joe Ryan, Stephen Smellie, Steve Sweeney, Dr Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, Dr Tom Wakeford, Dr Derek Wall, Julie Ward MEP, Hywel Williams MP.