Last weekend, one of my friends from the Italian Women Journalists’ Association called me and invited me to participate in a journalists’ forum to be held in Rome in March. I sadly told them that I am under a judicial control, meaning I have report to the police station once a month and have a […]
As the Turkish military bombarded parts of its own cities in the mainly Kurdish southeast of the country in January 2016, I was moderating a panel in a conference at the European Parliament in Brussels. After welcoming the audience that included parliamentarians, I called Mehmet Tunç, who was sheltering in a basement in the southeastern […]
Last night I received a call from a friend of mine who was a representative in the Turkish parliament for many years and a popular politician. She asked me what she would need in case of detention. Last week I was detained because of my Tweets against the war in Afrin, and now she also […]
It was just after midnight. I was watching TV as my sons played nearby. My younger son was playing with Lego as my older son played on his phone. My husband and another friend were also with us. A normal Sunday night. All of a sudden, I heard a terrible noise. At first, I thought […]
We exist, Kurdistan exists! I remember as a child how afraid I was when my mother spoke Kurdish in public. When I was seven, I needed to go to the hospital every week because of an accident. When the doctor would ask my mom a question about my health, I would quickly answer before my […]
Should children die? The winter months of late 2015 and early 2016 were a dark time in southeastern Turkey. Our cities were under bombardment. There were military curfews in many Kurdish cities. Children were dying from shrapnel and gunshot wounds. Most of schools in the mainly Kurdish southeast were closed. Many teachers had left. Kurdish […]