Years ago, I was impressed by a news article written by Kejê Bêmal for the Evrensel newspaper. The news was about the children whose mother tongue was Kurdish and who, for that reason, were sent to rehabilitation centres as “mentally handicapped”. Kejê Bêmal went to these rehabilitation centres to meet both the centre staff and […]
“It must be nice to able to wear a shirt.’’ The remark above was uttered by a child I met last year, who was crippled by a landmine explosion in the majority Kurdish southeast of Turkey. The story of this boy, who I will call Hasan, echoes that of hundreds of children in the region, whose bodies have been […]
Last month, Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakır province witnessed the brutal murder of a young woman by her brother, an incident that was caught on the security cameras of a nearby police station. Footage showed Abdullah Şaylemez firing five shots at his 34-year-old sister Gülistan Şaylemez, before fleeing the crime scene in a hurry. About 10 days […]
Last week, while strolling through the streets of Sur, I came across a group of girls and started a conversation with them. Can they attend online classes, do they have tablets or phones, how are their days during the pandemic… As I talked to them, I realised the reason why the girls looked at me […]
The neighbourhood of Sur in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeastern province of Diyarbakır is our home of 7,000 years. The ancient neighbourhood, which once flourished as a popular tourism destination in the heart of the Kurdish capital of Amed, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been through hell over the last six years. Destroyed […]
Political and civil society representatives in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeastern Diyabakır province last week issued a statement pertaining to the pandemic-prompted educational problems facing students in the region. The coronavirus pandemic has virtually halted schooling in this underdeveloped province that is home to Turkey’s highest unemployment rate and officials are warning that if the current trajectory […]