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The end of multiculturalism in the Kurdish Region

After winning most of the municipalities in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast in the 2009 local elections, pro-Kurdish party Democratic Society Party (DTP) instigated what it called a “multi-linguistic and multicultural governance” concept in Kurdish cities. Surp Gıragos Armenian Church, the biggest Armenian Church in the Middle East, was opened in 2011 after significant renovation funded […]

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As a supporter of Amedspor, I demand an explanation

I am not someone interested in football. My only relation to football is Amedspor, the flagship team of Diyarbakır in southeast Turkey. Like many Kurds, what has happened to Amedspor in the last three years has increased my interest in football. These days, I follow all their matches. Amedspor has been active since 1990s. Its […]

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The Wall

Seventeen years ago, I first saw Nusaybin, a predominantly Kurdish city on Turkey’s border with Syria. I was on my way to Qamishli, the town just across the frontier in Syria. This was when the Turkish state declared the state of emergency in that region, and it was not easy to cross the border. After […]

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Allowing the appointed to do away with the elected

Once again, pages of Hurriyet newspaper featured the statements of pro-government columnist Abdulkadir Selvi. Selvi has briefly stated that after upcoming local elections more local administrators would be appointed to the municipalities won by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which maintains a stronghold the country’s Kurdish southeast. The government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip […]

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Leyla Güven: More than just a politician

Leyla Güven has been in prison since January, accused of criticising the Turkish military offensive against the Syrian Kurdish district of Afrin. From behind bars she was elected as member of parliament for Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in the June 24 general elections. On June 29, a court decided to release her […]

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Yazidis in Turkey are still awaiting their fate

“We are awaiting for our fate,” a Yazidi woman told me in a refugee camp in Silopi in southeast Turkey four years ago. After Islamic State (ISIS) attacked Yazidi towns and villages in northern Iraq in August 2014, massacring male inhabitants and forcing women and girls to become sex slaves, thousands of Yazidis fled to […]