A couple of days ago, I and 804 other citizens of Turkey signed a statement, where we reiterated our desire to live a life of justice, peace with dignity and peace of mind on this land, with our livelihood and health under assurance. As signatories from academia, law and medicine, we tried to put into words […]
My hometown Sur is becoming quieter by the day. Those who leave are either moving away to make a living elsewhere or flee from the authorities; those who remain retreat inside their homes and try to power through this dark period in the district’s history. It is now cold in every way possible. I walk through Sur and […]
My grandmother Ayşe lived a long life. Sometimes she used to talk about the past, she used to tell about the soldiers coming to their village and when the soldiers had come, how they fled to the mountains. As some soldiers were spending the whole winter in their villages, she told us how they were […]
The date is October 29, in the Duranlar (Awyan) village in the southeast’s Yüksekova, Hakkari. It’s around six in the afternoon. Şerali Dereli leaves his house to tend to his horses like he does every day. His health has not been good, so he barely goes outside for anything else. The mare and its young […]
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Oct. 18 that the Kurdish-majority southeastern province of Şırnak has the same benefits as the country’s 80 other provinces. “What exists in Turkey’s 80 other provinces in the name of democracy, rights and freedoms exists here,” Erdoğan said during a congress of his ruling Justice and Development Party […]
A few days ago, a young woman was shot dead in Art Street in Turkey’s southeastern province of Diyarbakır. Melek Aslan, 24 years old, was murdered as she sat on a bench in the street by her brother Mustafa Aslan, who she had met to talk with, on the pretext of “honour”. We learned Melek’s story from the […]