A public forum called by Peace in Kurdistan, Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC), London Kurdish Solidarity (LKS) and Democratic Kurdish Peoples Assembly UK.
Date: Monday, 29 April 6pm. Venue: Unite House, 128 Theobald Road, Holborn, London WC1X 8TN
The discussion was moderated by Dr. Thomas Jeffrey Miley and included contributions from members of the UK delegation who observed the elections in the Kurdish regions of Turkey. The delegation consisted of journalists and academics – one of whom was deported and banned from Turkey and another threatened with deportation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yine4xwx0TE&feature=youtu.be
Dr. Thomas Jeffrey Miley is a Lecturer of Political Sociology at the University of Cambridge. He is a member of the executive board of the European Union Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC) and is a patron of Peace in Kurdistan. His scholarship focuses on comparative nationalisms, religion and politics, and empirical democratic theory. He has published broadly on the dynamics of nationalist conflict and accommodation in Spain and, increasingly, in Turkey. He is co-editor, with Federico Venturini, of Your Freedom and Mine: Abdullah Ocalan and the Kurdish Question in Erdogan’s Turkey (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2018). He is currently working on a project on struggles for self-determination in the twenty-first century.
Speakers
Emily Apple is a journalist and editor of The Canary. She is also an activist involved in civil liberties and anti-militarist struggles. She helped found the Network for Police Monitoring and is a core participant in the Undercover Policing Inquiry. She first went to Kurdistan in 2011 to observe the general election. And has observed two subsequent elections in June 2018 as well as the most recent local election. She writes on a variety of issues, including the Kurdish struggle, the arms trade, civil liberties and policing.
Eliza Egret is a researcher and activist. She is co-author of the book Struggles For Autonomy In Kurdistan, and regularly writes articles about Kurdistan and Turkey for various magazines and websites. She has travelled to Kurdistan a number of times, interviewing people about Democratic Confederalism and repression by the Turkish state.
Thomas Phillips is a lecturer/senior lecturer in law at Liverpool John Moores University. He has been involved in the Kurdish movement as an activist for several years and has visited Kurdistan four times, including Erbil, Sulaimani, Sirnak and Amed. He has written articles for a range of Kurdish news outlets as well as academic publications. He specialises in international law, human rights, and Kurdish studies. Thomas is currently writing-up his PhD thesis, which concerns the right of self-determination and the Kurds in Turkey with a particular focus on autonomy, language rights, and recognition.
Steve Sweeney is International Editor for the Morning Star newspaper. He has travelled extensively throughout Turkey and Kurdistan and reported from many political trials and elections. Steve has written a breath of work on Kurdish issues and has spoken at many meetings on his experiences including a European Parliament session on Press Freedom and Democracy in Turkey. He was recently detained, interrogated, deported and banned from Turkey after he went to cover the recent elections. Steve is the author of a forthcoming book on the HDP and Figen Yuksedag and is the founder of the new Journalists for Democracy in Turkey and Kurdistan initiative.
For information contact:
Peace in Kurdistan
Campaign for a political solution of the Kurdish Question
Email: estella24@tiscali.co.uk
www.peaceinkurdistancampaign.com