Journalist Erem Kansoy interviews Meral Çiçek from the Kurdish Women’s Relation Office (Navenda Pêwendiyan a Jinên Kurd) REPAK.
Background
Meral Cicek, who is from Sulaymaniyah – Southern Kurdistan, highlighted the latest developments regarding Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) forces enforcing road closures in Shengal as well as Iraqi government cooperation with Turkey against Yazidis and Kurds. Çiçek also spoke about the roots of the current tensions there, the impact they have had on women, and the role of Turkey in destabilising the region. Çiçek explained why she believed it is important to stop the implementation of the 9 October deal and what people can do in this regard.
The Yazidi community survived the genocide by the IS and is now threatened by Iraqi government and the KDP.
The Iraqi government signed an agreement on Shengal with the KDP on 9 October 2020, in which the Yazidis living in Shengal were ignored and not included in any way at the behest of the Turkish State and the USA. The main purpose of this agreement is to destroy the self-governance system that the Yazidi community has built after 74 genocides.
Meral Çiçek was born in 1983 in a Kurdish guest-worker family in Germany. She started political and women’s activism at the age of 16 within the Kurdish Women’s Peace Office in Dusseldorf. While studying Political Science, Sociology and History at the Goethe-University in Frankfurt she started to work as reporter and editor for the only daily Kurdish newspaper in Europe, Yeni Ozgur Politika, for which she still writes a weekly column. In 2014 she co-founded the Kurdish Women’s Relations Office (REPAK) in Southern Kurdistan (Northern Iraq). She is also editorial board member of the Jineoloji journal.
For more information on the petition please contact
Meral Cicek, Chair-woman
REPAK
Kurdish Women’s Relations Office
رێکخراووی پەیوەندییەکانی ئافرەتانی کورد
Navenda Pêwendiyan a Jinên Kurd
منظمة المرأة الكردية للعلاقات
+964 (0) 773 27 51 009
Sulaymaniyah – Southern Kurdistan /
Kurdistan Region in Iraq
Peace in Kurdistan
Campaign for a political solution of the Kurdish Question
Email: estella@gn.apc.org
https://www.peaceinkurdistancampaign.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peaceinkurdistan1/
Contacts Estella Schmid: 07846 666 804 & Melanie Gingell: 07572 430903