I have followed the Sarmaşık (Ivy) Association for Combating Poverty closely since its founding in 2005, and worked on their projects of fighting poverty in the southeastern region of Turkey, where a majority of the country’s Kurdish population resides. The association was established with widespread community participation. Many foundations, institutions, non-profit organizations, and activists came […]
70 years ago today, a group of courageous men and women came together to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a milestone in the history of civilisation. In the wake of the horrors of the Second World War, people decided they needed a document, a mechanism to protect humanity against future atrocities like the […]
These days Turkey’s calls for continuing the war on terror until “the last terrorist” is killed have reached new heights. The other day, I started thinking about how many times I’ve heard this phrase in my 40 years of existence. Until that “last terrorist” dies, life in this country will continue with war, destruction, and daily […]
Just over a year ago, a Cizre lawyer met a few of his friends at a cafe near the Tigris. They all agreed they could use a break from the stress and unrest in the city, which had recently seen violent clashes between security forces and Kurdish insurgents. This led to the October 2017 launch […]
After a long time away, I once again find myself in the city of Şırnak, capital of the southeastern Turkish province of the same name. It is also known as Nuh, which is Kurdish for Noah, the biblical prophet who built an ark to save the world’s creatures. Security checkpoints and observation towers along the […]
The new school year has started in Turkey with 25 million students, 17 million of them below the age of 18. We do not know the number of students who identify as non-Turkish, in terms of ethnicity, as the country’s censuses no longer ask the question. According to different sources, between 17 and 22 percent of […]