Last year, a group by the name of The Children’s Voices of Diyarbakir that consists of Kurdish youth aged 8 to 16 years of age, many who are orphaned, received a rare opportunity to participate in a World Music Festival in California. The kids put on a wonderful performance that could - and perhaps did - even put tears of joy to the eyes of non-Kurdish attendees as much as they did for Kurdish attendees.

This Kurdish youth group is composed of mostly orphans and was put together through a program initiated by Kurds in Turkey to help get the youth off the streets by engaging them in positive activities. At the festival in California, the kids sang a wide range of traditional Kurdish folk songs, played instruments, and even danced for the audience.

Now, back in Turkey, a few of them are facing charges by Turkish prosecutors for singing these songs in California…

3 Kurdish teenagers could stand trial for singing rebel song in US

The Associated Press

ANKARA, Turkey: A lawyer says three Kurdish teenagers could stand trial for allegedly singing a Kurdish rebel song under rebel flags during a music festival in the United States in October.

Defense lawyer Baran Pamuk says the teenagers were part of a 15-member chorus that allegedly sang a song called “Enemy” during a tour of San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco. He says an indictment demands their prosecution on charges of spreading the separatist propaganda of the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is fighting the Turkish state.

Pamuk said Tuesday a court will decide whether to hear the case. The three are aged between 16 and 17.

Well, the song that was actually sung by these children is entitled, “Ey Reqîb”, which is translated to “Hey Guard”. The song comes from a poem written by a late Kurdish political prisoner from Iraqi Kurdistan named Dildar (1917-1948) who wrote the poem in prison, hence the name.

Nowadays, people tend to translate the title of the song to “Hey Enemy”, as the prosecution did. The song is familiar to Kurds all over the world and has become known as the Kurdish national anthem.

Apparently singing this old piece from 1938 is considered a crime in Turkey, as are the so-called rebel flags that these kids were singing in front of. (The “rebel flags” were actually the Kurdish flag, and not exactly the flag of any particular rebel group or party.) The flag has become the official flag of the Kurdistan region in Iraq, as has the anthem.

News of these children appeared in the Turkish media first in order to rile up the Turkish public by claiming the children were spreading “separatist propaganda” like the AP article states above. Now the Turkish prosecution is working hard to put these children in prison… sadly, we all know what happens to Kurdish children in the custody of officers. (See the video of the Turkish officer breaking a 15-year-old’s arm in front of the camera here.)

By the way, in case you are wondering what happened to the 15-year-old in that video, Progressive Historians summed up a sequence of events on their site about his situation… he is in jail. For a few days, his father had been worried sick about his whereabouts until he saw the video of his son’s arm being broken on Kurdish TV. It was then his father, who can hardly afford it, set out to hire lawyers to defend his son from charges that Turkish prosecutors are planning on pressing against him. (Shouldn’t the officers torturing him be the ones on trial?)

According to the Hakkari Bar Association in Turkey, his arm was indeed broken (despite denials by the Turkish police) and lawyers who were able to visit the boy said his arm is wrapped in bandages.

There is no news as to whether he will be released.

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Earlier in the week, I had reported about the Turkish forces’ brutality against Kurds who were trying to celebrate the old New year or Newroz holiday. Kurds took to the streets to celebrate the holiday and Turkish officials seized the opportunity to flex their ideological as well as their military muscle as one writer at the Jamestown Foundation put it. (And with all so little being reported, I recommend reading the entire article.)

Unconfirmed numbers were killed, hundreds were injured and hundreds more imprisoned. But like so many other familiar events for Kurds in Turkey, the media, the institutions, the world continues looking the other way. The brutality is most certainly nothing new but justice simply lacks a voice in this part of the world.

I’ll leave you with a video that can be seen at the following link. I must warn some that it may be heartbreaking to say the least…

Newroz Tragedy 2008 - Click here for Video

Video shows Turkish police breaking
this 15-year old Kurdish boy’s arm

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However, while the festival in the Diyarbakir remained peaceful with no Turkish forces to intervene (perhaps because of the size of the festival there), other areas of celebration did not. In particular, across the border in Syria in the Kurdish city of Qamishli, three Kurds were shot dead by Syrian “security” forces. The reports say that the Syrian forces opened gunfire into the crowd after celebrators lit torches as part of the festivities. As I mentioned in the previous post, fire (and torches) is a big part of the Newroz celebrations all over the world, and it seems rather that the Syrian forces were simply more interested in looking for an excuse to open gunfire on the crowd in order to disperse them than they were concerned for a few torches.

Kurdish celebrators were also met with violence elsewhere. In several Kurdish cities throughout Turkey, Newroz celebrations were simply forbidden just as they have been in the past. The people in the Kurdish cities of Van, Hakkari, Urfa, and Siirt were denied permits to carry out their festivities.

Nevertheless, you cannot stop the people from celebrating an ancient holiday. Music was played loud and clear, and the celebrators set up fires to jump over; jumping over fire is an old tradition practiced all over the world by the various groups that celebrate Newroz. Unfortunately, in these cities, Turkish forces responded to peaceful celebrators with violence using batons, tear gas and water cannons. Many were injured and hundreds are said to have been arrested.

The following video was captured by the Turkish daily newspaper, Hürriyet, and speaks for itself. Local sources (verified by more video footage) say the festival started peaceful until Turkish police rushed the celebrators at times even beating the women with their batons as can be seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIj_mo76lVQ

Update: Two more deaths in Turkey after victims suffered severe injuries reported the Agence France-Presse. People again poured into the streets to protest and more clashes with Turkish police left several more protesters injured.

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Traditionally, groups celebrate the Newroz holiday by lighting fires, which symbolizes the victory of good over darkness; a practice believed to have been derived from the traditions of Zoroastrianism by some, and by other ancient religions that preceded it’s founding by others. Regardless of it’s roots, the tradition remains the same regardless of the present-day religious backgrounds of the people who celebrate this day. Many other traditions are practiced on Newroz including Heft Sin and Ciwarseme Suri, which may vary from group to group. Nevertheless, all share the tradition of getting together with family, friends and loved ones, dancing, singing, having feasts and enjoying the warmth of the coming of Spring.

For Kurds, Newroz has always held a very special meaning beyond that of a holiday. Newroz has become a symbol of the struggle for liberation and a day to celebrate the freedoms one has and the freedoms one deserves and longs to achieve. In the old traditions, songs and folktales of the Kurds, it is believed that Newroz has been practiced in this respect for centuries with the liberations of various ancient kingdoms including Mitanni and Medya to the modern region as we know it today.

Today, in the various countries which Kurds live, Newroz celebrations have been carried out with a certain political significance. For example, in Turkey - like the banning of public-use of the Kurdish language until 1991 or the denial of Kurdish identity - Newroz had been an illegal holiday until 2000. Unable to prevent millions of Kurds from breaking the law and celebrating the holiday, the Turkish government lifted the ban on the holiday by claiming it was Turkish all along. Prior to then, Kurdish celebrators were arrested simply for their participation in the festivities. However, even with such bans in place, people by the millions poured into the streets on Newroz and lit large fires in celebration to carry out the traditions of the festival. Today, those celebrations continue.

Happy New Year, or as it’s said in Kurdish, Newroz Pîroz Bê!
(Translation: May your New Day be blessed until your old days… )

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A mayor in the southeast of the country went on trial on Friday for publishing a storybook in the Turkish and Kurdish languages, in a case critics say highlights continued opposition to minority rights in Turkey

…

Prosecutors are seeking a jail sentence of up to three years for Baydemir and three other defendants in the case

Sadly, charges like these are actually nothing new for Mayor Osman Baydemir, or other public Kurdish officials in positions like him. He and several others already have pending charges against them for various other expressions of speech; 56 mayors including Mr. Baydemir were charged with writing a letter to the Danish prime minister requesting him not to shut down a Kurdish broadcast station in Denmark after being pressured by Turkey to take it off the air. The Danish PM Rasmussen found it “shocking” as we all should.

Mr. Baydemir also sparked controversy last year for sending New Year’s cards to the Turkish PM, cabinet ministers and members of parliament that simply said, “Happy New Year” in Kurdish. Odd by any standards, his kind gesture was met with charges by Turkish state prosecutors.

While many claim Turkey has made some changes to their legal system, charges like these prove otherwise. While some minimal broadcasts in the Kurdish language now air during odd hours in uncommon dialects following a law passed only three years ago, the little reform has been criticized as being insincere and rather cosmetic.

Charges against Mr. Baydemir are a result of existing Turkish laws requiring state agencies, civic groups and private institutions to use Turkish letters, which do not include the w, x, q to name a just few letters of the Kurdish language.

Indeed, not much has changed. Those who know a little about Turkey can hardly forget when, in 1991, the former parliamentarian and Nobel-peace prize nominee, Leyla Zana*, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for speaking Kurdish in the Turkish parliament.

Sad world when an alphabet will put you in jail…

*Short Documentary about Leyla Zana can be watched here:

part one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ELe0MqNWGk
part two
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrH91tTt_as

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The city was unprepared for such an attack that morning as was evident by the many children who were busy in the streets playing their usual games. Little did they suspect that Iraqi fighter jets would soon swoop low over Halabja dropping chemical weapons and would continue to bomb the city twenty times for almost one hour. When the bombs struck the city, many died instantly while others tried to escape not knowing that the stench of rotten apples they smelled was the poison gas that was heavier than the air they breathed.

As one Kurdish intellect, Kendal Nezan, described Halabja:

“The scene that greeted them in the morning defied description. The streets were strewn with corpses. People had been killed instantaneously by chemicals in the midst of the ordinary acts of everyday life. Babies still sucked their mothers’ breasts. Children held their parents’ hands, frozen to the spot like a still from a motion picture. In the space of a few hours 5,000 people had died. The 3,200 who no longer had families were buried in a mass grave.”

The attack on Halabja took place during Saddam’s infamous Anfal Campaign; a genocidal campaign designed to annihilate the Kurdish population in Iraq with details that are relatively unknown to the world. Halabja was not the first Kurdish settlement to be attacked with chemical weapons but was the site of the largest attack. Throughout 1987, Saddam Hussein and his Ba’athist Regime were said to have attacked at least 40 different villages or towns with chemical weapons. Very sadly, the world remained silent as Saddam Hussein carried out his atrocities against the Kurds. In fact, even with prior knowledge of Saddam’s usage of chemical weapons, the United States continued to provide Iraq with the technology. Saddam’s allies at the time refrained from condemning any of the attacks because of Iraq’s war with Iran.

The words of Hassan Ali al-Majid or ‘Chemical Ali’, a cousin of Saddam Hussein who was appointed head of the Northern Iraqi Bureau to carry out the campaign, were almost symbolic in describing the silence of the international community when he responded to a question about the massacres he ordered:

“I will kill them [the Kurds] all with chemical weapons. Who is going to say anything? The international community? To hell with them all!”

The Anfal Campaign resulted in the killings of nearly a quarter of a million Kurds in Iraq and the Tragedy of Halabja became a symbol of the worst repression against the Kurds. The single incident left thousands dead, and 20 years later, the memories of the attacks remain fresh in the minds of those who survived it.

Today, activists continue to seek international attention for the atrocities that continue to be committed against Kurdish populations throughout the Middle East. Unfortunately, in many cases, such atrocities continue to remain ignored and much of the world continues to remains silent.

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(For more information on what’s going on over there in Turkey and Iraq and why the protests, see Turkey-Kurdish Conflict 101)

The press release:

Kurdish-Americans Demonstrate Against Turkey’s Aggression

This week, several Kurdish-American communities and supporters across the United States are expected to demonstrate again in several cities in response to the recent invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan by the Turkish military. Kurdish-American communities in each city have coordinated with one another to launch demonstrations during the same week in order to express a unified opposition to months of bombings by the Turkish military and the recent invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Kurdish communities have organized protests in several cities for Friday Feb 29th including Atlanta, GA, San Diego, CA, Dallas, TX, Phoenix, AZ, San Francisco, CA, and Washington DC. A demonstration in the city of Nashville took place on Wednesday, Feb 27th.

Demonstrations are focused around the recent military aggression by Turkey against the Iraqi Kurdistan region. Since December, the Turkish military has engaged in extensive aerial attacks against the region, which have resulted in the destruction of villages, bridges and other infrastructure, and the killing and wounding of countless civilians under the pretext of fighting Kurdish rebels. The Kurdish-American communities are demanding an end to the United States’ support for the Turkish military and are requesting the U.S. government to issue a clear condemnation of the military incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan, which is a threat to the stability and peace of the region.

The demonstrations will highlight the importance of belief that a political and peaceful solution is the only viable solution to the conflict, and that the peace offerings and Kurdish rebel ceasefires negotiated and supported by members of the Iraqi government should be recognized as important developments to the progression of peace in the region.
Representatives in each of the cities are urging members of Kurdish and non-Kurdish communities in America to show their support for peace and join the demonstrations.

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A little history…

Turning eyes to Turkey, one will be disturbed to say the least at the various issues at hand with regards to Turkey’s long history of human rights abuses and oppressive policies. The Kurds in Turkey have been the primary victims of these policies who have suffered everything from harsh assimilation campaigns, displacements and various forms of ethnic cleansing. During the 1990s alone, nearly 4000 Kurdish villages in Turkey were completely destroyed leaving the people homeless and forced to move to large cities where they rarely were able to adapt to the new life. Results of these internal displacements can be seen with a simple visit to the impoverished Kurdish southeast where unemployment rates reach unbelievable highs of 60 - 70%. In addition to economical as well as other problems (cited by human rights organizations) such as torture, unexplained disappearances, black operations in which innocents are killed and even the banning of the Kurdish language in Turkey and lack of cultural rights, the Kurds have also been limited a political voice. Many Kurdish politicians have been imprisoned sometimes for decades for simply speaking out for Kurdish rights. Resulting factor in all this: Many have turned to an arms struggle, which has haunted the country for over two decades.

Today, the conflict continues as Turkey makes it’s way across the Turkish-Iraqi border into Iraqi Kurdistan. Despite Iraqi condemnations against these crossings, Turkish officials say they are justified in their invasion because the rebels have bases there and that they are targeting rebels and not Iraqis.

The flaw in their justification?

First and foremost, although the Turkish military claims to have inflicted damage on rebel camps, no claims could be confirmed. Instead, footage and reports of the area are showing that the only damage being done is to the civilian villages in the region. (See a video reporting on the region at Real News.) Contrary to the Turkish claims, the Iraqi Kurdish leadership has said it believes Turkey’s expansion of the war into northern Iraq is not against the PKK Kurdish rebels, but instead against all Kurds as demonstrated by the attacks on the villages, and in particular, the Iraqi Kurds’ own political gains and autonomy in the region. They justify these claims by pointing out that the majority of Kurdish rebels operate within Turkey’s own borders. This was even confirmed by Turkey’s own Prime Minister last year. Unfortunately, he contradicted his own statements later when he was pressured by the Turkish military to approve an invasion of Iraq.

Regardless of these accusations on both sides, one thing that everyone seems to agree on (even the United States, European Union and the United Nations) except Turkey is that there is no military solution to this old conflict. The conflict has been ongoing for decades and the losers are on both sides. A combination of tough mountainous terrain and the continued Turkish State repression causing more disgruntled Kurds to support the PKK makes the conflict an everlasting one. The result is essentially a military stalemate and a lot of casualties.

Another Iraqi War…

The solution to the problem begins with dialogue and ends with increased rights for the Kurdish minority in Turkey; a concept rejected by the Turkish government over and over again. Turkish officials should be willing to communicate with Kurdish officials in the federal region of Iraqi Kurdistan instead rejecting peace talks. Instead, while officials in Iraq and even in the European Union have pointed to rebel ceasefires as a good opportunity to begin a lay down of arms and the beginning of a political solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey, the Turkish military continues it’s operations with the logistical support of the U.S. government.

The result here is another Iraqi war that is not going to end any time soon.

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