Deniz Poyraz, an employee with the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (HDP) İzmir headquarters was killed in an armed attack on the party’s head office in the western province on June 17. We understand from photos shared on social media that 27-year-old assailant Onur Gencer had in the past went to fight in Syria. We do […]
A Kurdish family was attacked in Turkey’s southern Mersin province in May. The Kurdish family, who came to Mersin as tourists from Erbil, the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), sustained injuries of a racist attack by a group of people with stones and batons. The Governor’s Office of Mersin has denied the […]
“After all these years, I do not have a proper answer for such a question of what justice is. Because everything is so volatile and hopeless. Wherever a person hurts, that’s where the life is. Justice; is not being judged for long, justice; is that the law applies to all, justice; is not to be […]
I was talking to a friend from Brussels, where we have vacationed together for many years. She told me that the COVID-19 pandemic measures were easing and she was planning a vacation for this summer, before asking me about the situation in Turkey. “This place is amazing, but for you, the tourists,’’ I told her. […]
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 […]
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 […]