Conflict resolution, Peace process

Women warn UK government of dangers to Kurds

On Wednesday 23rd September at 4pm, a delegation of women delivered an open letter signed by a coalition of prominent women’s rights activists to 10 Downing Street. The letter urgently calls on David Cameron to use his influence with the Turkish government to stop the violence being perpetrated against Kurdish civilians in the south east of the country.

The delegation includes Michelle Allison (Kurdistan National Congress), Evrim Yilmaz (Roj Women Assembly) and human rights barrister Melanie Gingell, who has just returned from a fact-finding mission to Cizre, south east Turkey, which has been under curfew for several days and which has been a flashpoint of violence between Turkish security forces and Kurdish civilians in recent weeks.

Cameron has long insisted that Turkey, a NATO partner, is a strong friend to the UK. On his last official visit to Ankara, Cameron stated that Britain and Turkey would work “hand-in-glove” to combat ISIS. And yet he has turned away as the Turkish government used their apparent entry into the anti-ISIS coalition as a veil to break the ceasefire with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and attack Kurdish towns and villages. Continue reading “Women warn UK government of dangers to Kurds” →

Conflict resolution, Peace process

Ocalan’s tribute to Nelson Mandela: “A shining star that enlightened the peoples of Africa”

Below we reproduce a statement by Abdullah Ocalan on the death of Nelson Mandela

 

The tears that are being shed worldwide for Nelson Mandela today, the stories that are being shared about him and the wisdom that he bequeathed to all other freedom movements shows us what an outstanding individual he was.

The history of the peoples of the world is mostly shaped through the callous insolence of those trying to hold the masses in their grip. This insolence at times appears because the whole world sees this oppression but turns a blind eye to it, at times through the evil of totalitarianism and the banality by which it is fed. While the perpetrators of evil constantly bow their knees in shame and beg forgiveness or become a dark chapter in the book of history, the struggle against the banality of evil and rising totalitarianism appears in the only thing soaking all the soils of the world at the same time: the tears of the oppressed human being.

Mandela and the struggle for democracy and freedom that he pioneered are the very basis of what defines the concept of struggle for those who have adopted the principle of free and equal life. We cannot talk about people like Mandela in terms of the past. For individuals who have won their place in the hearts of the peoples such as he did bear the fate of playing the role of Prometheus. Neither the day they decide to carry the fire nor the way they carry it is coincidental. It is a struggle to honourably oppose the destruction caused by the capitalist modernist system which the rulers impose in the course of history.

Continue reading “Ocalan’s tribute to Nelson Mandela: “A shining star that enlightened the peoples of Africa”” →

Conflict resolution, Kurdish language rights, Peace process, Political prisoners

A people without a voice: Syrian Kurds and The future of the Middle East

September 30, 2013 

American University, School of International Service, Center of Peacebuilding and Development

                                                                                                                                         

Panel discussion presentation:

By Saif Badrakhan, Kurdistan National Congress- KNK, USA Representative

 

The future of the Kurds, Western Kurdistan and the war in Syria

The 50 million Kurds live on their ancestral land Kurdistan for more than 5000 years. The Kurdish nation has been occupied and divided between four countries  by the victories allies after the World War I. This criminal unjust action created
a historical tragedy for the Kurdish people. The countries of Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq cooperated and used forced cultural assimilation, forced emigration,
massacres and genocide in the last 90 years to assimilate and eliminate the Kurdish nation, but failed to accomplish their colonial aims.

Continue reading “A people without a voice: Syrian Kurds and The future of the Middle East” →

Kurdish community, Kurdish Women, Peace process

We demand justice!

CENI – Kurdish Women’s Office for peace have released this statement on the anniversary of the assassinations in Paris of Sakine, Fidan and Leyla.

Also, the CENI Info news bulletin for June is available in English for the first time, bring you all the latest news from the Kurdish women’s movement in Kurdistan and the diaspora. You can download it here. 

We won’t rest until the murders of Sakine, Fidan and Leyla are completely solved:

 We demand justice!

On 9 January 2013, a terrible crime took place in central Paris. Three female Kurdish politicians and fighters for freedom and women rights, Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Şaylemez were gruesomely murdered with shots to the head. The Kurdish people, women and democratic forces around the world, are demanding a prompt and full investigation into the killings.

Continue reading “We demand justice!” →