There is no better example than Iran. The Iranian government is not a victim of this, they deserve any revealing coverage that comes their way. It’s a country that thrives on its own people’s blood and by executing people at such a fast rate that it’s difficult to be shocked or even shaken by such news anymore. People hear about it so often that it’s numbing. They hear about it mostly because it’s accessible. U.S and Israeli media report it every day as a strategy to empower itself. It’s a brutal psychological war that uses real lives and real personal stories, real people, to give itself more power. The more it happens, the more they celebrate it. It shows from their energetic coverage of such news. For their convenience, such news helps to divert your attention away from their own crimes and their own dirty games that play a big role in today’s political and human rights crisis across our countries. Protesters shot and killed in Saudi Arabia or Bahrain? Move along people, nothing to see here.

Many of my activist friends in Iran share this same feeling. These governments (also oppressive) taking advantage of these activists who risk their own freedoms to expose these stories and who, as a consequence, have to witness these stories being used against them. We all know that the U.S and Israel, and their allies, have no interest in human rights and in us as human beings. They have an interest in their political and economic status, and to maintain Israel’s role as a superpower in the region, one that also thrives on blood and murder. But the U.S regards that as “necessary crimes” for Israel’s “survival,” though Iran and Syria can claim the same thing. They kill for the survival of their current government and current structure and to protect the current people in power. You can justify anything if you try to and sometimes it would even make sense, it just would never be right. Especially if it means you end up putting even more people in danger than they already were, which is what both the U.S and Israel are doing with its narrow coverage.

Some people ask why others are so focused on Israel when there are crimes happening in their own countries or other neighboring ones. The answer is that coverage of these issues gets in the wrong hands all too often. These are powerful hands who call the shots (literally.) In one instance you still want the entire world to know what crimes your government is committing and in another you don’t want to empower occupying and imperialist forces to use that as justice for their interference. A lot of people feel that the latter is an important struggle because the human rights movements feels incomplete without it.

Unfortunately for us, this will happen regardless of our fight against it. That doesn’t mean we can sit back and watch it happen, but we should expose it and discourage it and even refrain from speaking with certain journalists at certain papers and state our reasons why so that they understand that we’re not going to help their agendas that are in direct competition with ours. And our agenda is the simplest demand that is the hardest to fight for: to be free. Free from tyrannical regimes and free from occupying foreign forces.

I’m not saying we should provide a one-sided view about maids in the Gulf. Complaints will exist and some are legitimate. However, journalists, columnists, bloggers and editors need to be extremely alert and cautious about how they are framing these issues. Maids lack a lot of legal rights in our countries, thanks in part to the sponsorship system which leaves them completely vulnerable to abuse, but they also suffer from a considerable amount of racist discrimination throughout our societies. Look no further than an average mall or an airport anywhere from Doha to Manama to witness the despicable treatment of South Asian workers. It’s common enough that it’s impossible to deny.

We need to highlight our outrage to these editors who don’t know any better than to publish this propaganda that seemingly encourage racism and normalizes classism. Why push for the idea that maids are “pampered” when they have incredibly demanding jobs under little to no protection? Why complain about the expenses involved in hiring a maid when they get the least amount of compensation which amount to nothing in comparison to the average salary in the Gulf? And more importantly, why amplify these self-absorbed voices instead of the voices of victims and their families that are barely recognized? Thousands of families are still demanding justice for their siblings, mothers, fathers, sons or daughters who have disappeared without trace upon arriving to our countries. They are forgotten and dismissed.

In a previous article I took similar issue with one of the other pieces published by this same paper. Sadly other local papers appear to have been inspired to be following a similar trend. This is a grave problem.

For a publication called Emirates 24/7 the editors should consider creating a section to discuss the “24/7 workers” who work insane hours on a daily basis to provide for complete strangers, sometimes under deplorable conditions. They spend years doing this. Some don’t come out of it alive. Some take their own lives. Some patiently go through each day despite not having their salaries paid on time or in full. Some get beaten to death. Some get raped.

This isn’t to generalize and claim that all domestic workers go through these issues, but they do happen in such frequency that we should be alarmed and informed enough to take action. We should never dismiss these as the “few” cases – there’s enough of these cases that makes this OUR problem. Every single week for an entire year there’s one story after another about these incidents and yet the outcry remains largely invisible particularly in these media outlets, who instead publish these horrid stories about maids being “pampered.”

So I have a few questions for Shuchita Kapur, one of the authors of such offensive and unnecessary op-ed pieces. You think it’s tough having to “pamper” a maid? Having to provide for her the way she gave up years of her life to provide for you? Having to grant this individual who catered to your every need a decent request? Go through one day as a maid and I assure you, you will never complain again. I’m confident it will change the tone of your stories when you realize the challenges and physical/psychological pressures involved in the job. When you are turned away from public spaces, mocked, dismissed, and harassed because the entire community around you deems you so pitiful to the point of worthlessness. When the idea of reuniting with your family is a distant dream that may or may never happen depending on nothing but pure “luck” because your protection is never guaranteed.

Shuchita, I doubt you have the strength required to endure this pain.

It might appear from the influx of tragic stories that these maids are weak and helpless. Make no mistake in assuming that. Most have the inspiring courage, determination, and patience necessary to survive decades of abuse, imprisoned in a household where they are taken advantage of, mistreated and never appreciated, all the while missing out on watching their own families grow. How many of us can go through that?

It’s time for us to urgently take a stance against trivializing abuse of migrant workers in the media.

Unrest in Syria, domestic and foreign conflicts, unstable economics, and ever increasing sanctions are some of many factors challenging Iranian’s regime. The question arises, whether the current circumstances can be taken advantage of by the working class, students, and generally the opposition and the green movement?

A national state requires its different components to be in accordance in order to function properly. After its allegedly rigged presidential elections, over two years ago, the Iranian government was faced a political crisis. While the opposition was heavily oppressed, the new government also had to cope with the burdens of the Islamic republic, ranging from economical deficits to foreign struggles. Removing subventions and establishing diplomatic relations with Latin American countries were just a few of newly introduced policies. However these efforts could not sufficiently stabilize the compromised integrity and legitimacy of the government. On the contrary the opposition is making an effort to reorganize, domestic conflicts are getting radicalized and the economy is on its downturn. Moreover the controversial nuclear program and the sanctions added on the pressure.

From a strategic point of view, the opposition can make best of the current regime’s dilemma to reach its own goals. At the moment the opposition has the opportunity to dispute the aforementioned matters and their consequences on the society. If the opposition succeeds to take a stand on these issues it may be able to reunite different groups and mobilize masses. The western interest on one hand and the conflicts inside the regime on the other hand made a momentum to be used by the opposition.

The normal conclusions you’d draw from knowing these things are that the Internet is an amazing tool to connect people, a powerful way of spreading information and changing opinions, and a vast world to explore and so on. On the other hand, the conclusion drawn by many dictatorships is that the internet is dangerous when used by the peoples they try to oppress. This is illustrated in how censorship is implemented in states such as China and Iran and in how social media such as Facebook have become symbols of revolution in the Arab Spring movement. It is therefore no surprise that greater powers seek to consolidate their positions by keeping up with their own time and realizing the potential, the usefulness and the dangers of the Internet.

SOPA, PIPA, ACTA. These acronyms have caused uproar in Europe, America and Asia where people speak up in debates, go out on the streets and demonstrate and wage virtual war against the attempts to stop net-piracy from the USA and EU, who seek to make it possible to shut down and block entire websites that feature, for example, copyright-protected images. The opposition believes that any form of internet-regulation, no matter reason, would lead us closer to a world where governments can regulate the streams of information to control what people can know. Thoughts of George Orwell’s dystopic “1984” haunt the minds of many concerned citizens who see the American attempts to regulate the Internet as a sign of the very same imperialist hubris that started the War on Terror. They used 9/11 as an excuse to secure oil from Iraq and Afghanistan – now they try to control the Internet discreetly in the name of War on Online Piracy.

This collides violently with the interests of the Kurdish people in many ways, brothers and sisters. For it is so, that the Internet is a key tool in our struggle for freedom – imagine it being controlled by states allied to our enemies in Ankara or Tehran, enemies who have shown that they don’t hesitate to attack journalists, activists, photographers or a certain Kurdish TV-station in Scandinavia. Imagine how more SOPAs and PIPAs slowly undermine freedom of speech over the years and how the War on Online Piracy is able to evolve into a campaign against enemies of the American government and its allies. Imagine that we, the already silenced people in mainstream media, become silenced on the net, having our sites taken down, our blogs blocked and our videos and images that prove committed atrocities deleted.

To succeed in our struggle, we need all the help we can get. And it is an accepted doctrine among the Kurds that we must seek support in non-Kurdish governments and peoples who can apply outside pressure on our oppressors. But, in order to do that we need to keep the information flowing from the homeland – the proofs of killed civilians, the jailed journalists, the children on hunger-strikes. There is a reason behind the systematic attacks against Kurdish media by the Turkish, Iranian and Syrian governments – if knowledge is power and additionally free and easily accessible then it’s also dangerous for the regimes. The sharpest spears in our struggle are the pencils we hold in our hands – the letters in an article are more dreaded than the bullets fired by rebels.

Knowing these things it should be absolutely out of the question to even accept that the Internet falls into the hands of any government that may be capable of censorship and cutting information-streams – especially not the information-streams vital to the survival of our struggle and nation. Opposing regulations on the Internet is therefore a question of necessity and survival, of protecting our flanks and sides in the virtual world.

Now, the pessimist might say: “what use is there to protest, they will let these laws pass anyway”. Yes, the governments of the West will probably not back down on these laws sooner than we would like and the opposition is in for a long fight. But it is our resolve that should determine the intensity of our struggle – not the resolve of the people we oppose. With such pessimism the attempts of dialogue between Turks and Kurds could be dismissed as futile, especially since the fascists in Ankara use the army to quell the opposition, in contrast to the states of the West. Yet, the struggle in northern Kurdistan goes on – as should the struggle on the streets and squares of Europe and the forums on the net. The cause, to preserve freedom of speech, will have to fuel people and turn the angry freedom-fighters into patient, unrelenting freedom-fighters. If anything, patience and perseverance are the traits every Kurd carries deep within him or her – born from the constant struggle, which have more than once seemed utterly fruitless. The Kurd is not only in need of joining the ongoing campaign against War on Online Piracy but has a natural place in the struggle and can prove to be a valuable ally of the global opposition.

Also, aligning ourselves with the people who protect the Internet is according to the principle to seek non-Kurdish support for our cause. As I have stated before, we live in the age of free information and a completely new, global, internet-culture is emerging. Anonymous, Lulzsec and other hacker-groups are groups created from online-communities and when looking at different demonstrators around the world we see that they carry symbols, signs and masks indicating a common cultural base – internet-memes and Guy Fawkes-masks tell us about the new generation of internet-users, the generation that one day will inherit the world. Joining the opposition would therefore not only be an act of defending the interests of our people, but also to create spheres of influence for the Kurds. By demonstrating side by side and joining forces we’d be getting new friends in a generation that is currently gaining power fast. By protecting the values and ideals all free peoples of the world should staunchly preserve, we remind the new generation that we are humans too. And as the development of the Internet-movement continues Kurds ought to jump on the train in time to keep up – the struggle for the Kurdish people lies not only in preserving our ancient culture and following nationalist paroles from the past, but also in carrying our nation, culture and people from one time-period to another. This is the eternal duty every Kurdish generation is tasked with.

Although most Kurds may not even have any access to the Internet it is no reason for us in the diaspora to neglect the ongoing events of War on Online Piracy. In fact, responsibility lies heavier on our shoulders (or should I say, our keyboards?) since we are the only ones who are able to speak for the Kurds in online media. As our brethren suffer unspeakable atrocities in the hands of our enemies, our duty is to keep the flow of information going – and to protect the backs of our people in Kurdistan.

With all this said, we have a lot to win in joining the struggle and a lot to lose if we do not. Let us therefore join the fight against SOPA, ACTA and PIPA as one of the free peoples of the world. We do it for You, Kurdistan.

67 years ago, in Japan, “THE LITTLE BOY” didn’t mean innocence; it meant damage, pain and suffering. It wasn’t blue and wasn’t white, it was black and grey with spots of red all over the place. And most importantly it wasn’t a toy, it was the bomb that vanished Hiroshima!

It took only 60 seconds to kill 30% of the total population of Hiroshima, 90% of their doctors and 70% of their buildings were instantly turned into ash. Experts predicted it would take a city wiped off the map decades to ever be the same.

Three to four years after the A-bomb, Hiroshima rose from the ashes!

After all, naming a bomb that killed thousands of children “the little boy” wasn’t that cruel. It gave the Japanese the hope of a new start that a “little boy” can have while riding his bicycle for the first time. Each fall showed him the mistakes, which he should never repeat again. And instead of crying, he smiles and tries again and again until the day comes when he can let the winds wipe away all his painful memories as he ride his bicycle as fast as a bicycle can be ridden.

The people in Hiroshima couldn’t fight death, burns or diseases from the radiation, but they certainly could fight fear, despair and negativity. They knew that with hope and faith, everything is possible. They believed in the power of the human willingness, determination and his ability to recover. When people told them “the glass is half full”, they disagreed and refused to settle for anything less than a “full glass”!

As an Iraqi, my left and right brain sides are always in dispute.

My left side thinks we can never be Hiroshima, Iraq can never be the same, the damage can never be undone, the hurt and pain that each Iraqi carries over their shoulders can never be lifted and that we will have to live with the shame of not recovering forever. My left side thinks peace and happiness have left Iraq long ago, and he insists that they will never come back again. He reminds me every day of our mistakes as Iraqis, as a government and as humans.

And whenever someone asks me “where are you from?” he nags me to deny being an Iraqi, he screams loudly the names of the children who were killed by the Iraqis themselves, he sings the wedding songs of the newly weds who were killed on their wedding nights, and sometimes, he makes me listen to the Iraqi mothers telling their stories which always start with tragedy and end with uncertainty. And when I remind him of Hiroshima, with a voice full of rage and anger, trying to hold on to my last piece of hope, quietly he says “but we are Iraqis, we can never do the same!”

Then…just then, my right side wakes up, with his loud silence, reminding me of the days of Hulagu, when he raped, destroyed and shuttered Baghdad. The days when instead of giving up, Baghdad ran and took the hands of her history, medicine, astronomy and mathematics and hidden them inside of her, under her streets and between her walls, turning her rivers into a blue water which she later generously let us drink.

She was smart enough to know that with sword and hatred, you might be able to kill people, damage houses, or even make a city vanish! But she was sure that they could never erase our history, wipe away our culture. That the smell of smoke cannot replace the delicious smell of our tea, and no matter how bitter our pain is, we can never forget how sweet our date once tasted.

I still believe in Baghdad, in Hiroshima!
I refuse to settle for half-solutions, half governments, and that Iraqis will always live with half happiness, half satisfaction and that sometimes they only get to live half a life!
I still want to believe that I will not settle for half a country, I won’t get to choose between south and north, Sunni or Shia, I will never follow half a religion!
And no matter what my left-brain side says, I try to hold on, as hard as I can, to the belief that my right side will always be RIGHT.

Earlier this week declared Wuterich is guilty of misconduct, and Tuesday he met in court at the military camp Pendleton near San Diego in California to find out the sentence.

He was initially sentenced to 90 days in jail, but do not have to zone as a result of an agreement he made with the military prosecutors. Instead, he was demoted to Private.Prosecutors have emphasized that the 31-year-old lost control after seeing a comrade killed in a bomb explosion in the Iraqi town of Haditha 19 November 2005.

It is a big shock to iraqi people that the ministry of human rights is planning to call for appeal ,,the victims families can not understand how this just happened …many in iraq thought that the legal system in US  is better than iraq ,but to act with such disregard of the death of all those people makes them lose faith in the democratic system that they “brought” to Iraq.

wamith al-kassab

wameeth@gmail.com

When an entire people are systematically oppressed and marginalized, small actions to make their story heard can have dramatic consequences. Similarly, small actions to silence their voice can have dramatic and tragic consequences.

RojTV is one of the only international Kurdish language channels available to Kurds. It broadcasted everything from children’s programmes to Kurdish music and film. But most importantly, it filled the large gap of Kurdish news and politics, information that is ignored or censored from mainstream media. For over a year, RojTV had been embroiled in a long legal battle after being accused of violating Danish anti-terrorism laws. Perhaps you’ve read an article related to the case over the last year, or had been following it avidly. Or maybe the first time you ever heard of RojTV and its legal battle was when the case was closed. Kurds celebrated when RojTV kept its license, despite being found guilty of “terrorism” and charged a hefty fine.

Kurdish celebration was short lived, however. On January 19, Eutelsat Communications decided to stop broadcasting RojTV, effectively shutting down one of the biggest sources of Kurdish news in the world.

With the closing of RojTV, Kurds lose a powerful voice, one that frequently was the only one on their side. With the closing of RojTV, Turkey will no longer be held accountable for the arrest of hundreds of journalists, activists, academics, and even children. Iran can continue to hide the murder of Kurdish migrant workers on the Iranian border, and the arbitrary detention and execution of Kurdish activists. Images of Turkish massacres, like the most recent in Roboski, will no longer flicker across the screens of thousands of people, who can then mobilize to demand justice for their dead.

To you, perhaps, the only emotion you felt was “good riddance”. RojTV was provocative, some say. Or worse, an incitement to terrorism. Its messages had no place in anyone’s living room, you claim.

Dear reader, we’re here to tell you your claims are wrong.

Differences in political opinions should flourish. We’re not telling you to think exactly like us. But the dangers in silencing any political opinion are always more dangerous than any political opinion itself. The censorship of RojTV by the Danish courts, Eutelsat Communications, and by the pressures of Turkey itself extend far beyond the closure of this one Kurdish station. With the closing of RojTV, the voice of the Kurds has been silenced, and because Kurds are humans, who proudly claim their basic human rights, a voice of humanity has been silenced.

For you see, the Kurdish struggle isn’t just the Kurdish struggle, just like the Palestinian struggle isn’t just the Palestinian struggle, and the Egyptian struggle and Bahraini and Syrian. Wherever people sacrifice their time, and their lives, for greater freedom for their people, all of us who are invested in human rights and social justice gain. We, the authors of this letter, aren’t Kurds. One of us is Bahraini, the other Syrian. We’re from two countries run by dictatorships. Our people understand very sharply how valuable freedom is. It is only because we value freedom in our own countries that we feel a duty to stand with the Kurds. We cannot advocate for our own voices while we accept the silencing of others.

This is what motivates us. This is our cause. We are not terrorists, nor advocates of terrorists. Odds are, the word doesn’t mean what you think it means anyway. But either way, there is no political agenda behind our efforts. We merely speak up against violations of human rights, something the Kurds suffer far too often.

And because we speak up, we, as Arabs, are the target of some of the same attacks that Kurds face themselves. We receive hate mail and threatening comments, usually in the name of extremist Turkish nationalists. Our site has faced numerous hacking attempts. All because we stand up for Kurds. If we, as non-Kurds, face this abuse, then what do our Kurdish brothers and sisters have to put up with, simply for claiming their right to their rich historical and cultural background? For asking to live with dignity?

We realize we are reaching out to an unfamiliar audience. You may have never met a Kurd, or have your own opinions regarding the Kurdish struggle. Regardless of anything else, everyone has a basic human right to a voice, and a voice that is heard. Despite centuries of abuse, despite their very language being banned, the Kurdish voice has never been louder. At the very least, you have an obligation to hear them out. Banning TV stations and imprisoning journalists won’t silence the Kurds, but it will lay the foundations for a dangerous world where we all surrender our basic human rights to the people in power, where surveillance and censorship are valued more highly than dignity and liberty.

The Kurds are facing a painful battle for their freedom, one they’ve paid for with their lives. With your support, crimes against the Kurdish people will no longer weigh on humanity’s conscience. Speak up for a world where everyone can be heard regardless of ethnicity or faith. Freedom is non-negotiable. If these crimes are allowed to go unnoticed and unpunished, you could be next.

In solidarity,
S. Boulad
E. Al Shafei
The Alliance for Kurdish Rights

It was a wicked invention; everything good and beautiful became revolting and disgusting when reflected by the mirror.

One day, the Devil flew around in the air with his mirror, reflecting the divine sky but it was too much beauty for the mirror to handle. It broke into millions of pieces, some as small as grains of sand. They fell onto the ground, but also into the hearts and eyes of men, women and children whose heart froze to ice and whose eyes could now only see that which was unpleasant and evil.

The Verdict Of ROJ TV

Not many miles away from the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen and merely 137 years and a few months after his death, the verdict of the trial of the Kurdish TV-channel ROJ TV was announced.

We were 500 snowmen outside the court in Copenhagen, paralysed and silenced by the cold gushes of wind. Then, we heard a scream of joy; we all melted and became a sea of flames.

I was burning and freezing when I turned my back to the dancing crowd, bowed my head and tweeted ”we won.”

We did not win. Yes, ROJ TV was allowed to keep broadcasting from Denmark but only because of formalities in the Danish penal law; a penal law so vague and obscure that the satellite provider, Eutelsat, suspended its agreement with ROJ TV and shut down its satellite signal to avoid being part of ”terrorist activities.”

The Danish court ruled that ROJ TV has acted as a mouthpiece for terror. This ruling was based on the judge’s conviction that ROJ TV is controlled by PKK, a Kurdish rebel group listed as a terror organisation by the European Union, the United States and Turkey, in regard to both finance and content. Therefore, the court sentenced the two companies behind ROJ TV to pay a fine of approximately 900,000 dollars, a verdict that was appealed to High Court three days later.

The verdict of ROJ TV is 190 pages long. The following section will present the essential conclusions that were summarised by the Danish newspaper, Jyllandsposten.

1 – From February 7, 2008 to February 10, 2010 ROJ TV has acted as a mouthpiece for the terror organisation, PKK.

2 – The TV-station has repeated messages from PKK without presenting other views. The guerrilla is portrayed in a positive way and manner that indicates more than sympathy for PKK.

3 – There is however no proof of these links between ROJ TV and PKK in the period June 10, 2006 to February, 2008 which had also been a count in the charge against ROJ TV.

4 – PKK has ”to a great extent” supported ROJ TV financially from 2006 to 2010

5 – The decision about what ROJ TV is allowed to broadcast is made by a media company in Belgium. The department in Denmark has no influence on what programmes to broadcast.

6 – Documents found in Belgium show that individuals with close relations to PKK have had the final word in regard to what ROJ TV should or should not broadcast about PKK.

7 – The two companies, ROJ TV A/S and Mesopotamia Broadcast A/S, have promoted PKK activities and are therefore sentenced to pay a combined fine of approximately 900,000 dollars.

8 – The companies are acquitted prosecutors’ demand of suspending the broadcasting license in Denmark. The Danish penal law cannot on legal basis confiscate the rights of companies, associations, etc.

One Man’s Terrorist

When the trial of ROJ TV started in August 2011, the court not only had to decide whether ROJ TV was a mouthpiece for terror or not, but also if PKK was indeed a terror organisation as Turkey, the European Union and the United States have listed it to be.

The judge looked at the terror lists, she looked at the extracts from ROJ TV’s programmes selected by the prosecutors and then found herself enlightened enough to declare PKK a terror organisation.

Now, this can nothing but enrage people seeking justice and expecting nothing but justice from a court in Denmark that holds its freedom so dear, so dear.

How can anyone regard Turkey’s terror list trustworthy when Turkey is infamous for its treatment of journalists and its restrictions on freedom of press and freedom of speech all the while referring to its terror law?

How can anyone regard the US’ terror list trustworthy when the US only removed Nelson Mandela from the list 4 years ago, when the US is ignorant enough to think that “by killing people who has killed people we can teach people not to kill people” and when the US still has not closed the most terrifying man-made institution on this Earth, Guantanamo Bay?

How can anyone regard the EU terror list trustworthy when the European Union Court in 2008 annulled its ruling that PKK was a terror group?

How can anyone regard terror lists trustworthy when it is common knowledge that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter?

How can anyone regard terror lists trustworthy when it is always the ”state”, ”the richest and the biggest” that has enough money and power to make up a list, put people on it and say: ”There you go, one terror list, please follow it or I will make your life a living Hell.”

How?

The judge did not even allow for ROJ TV lawyer, Bjoern Elmquist, to present his material about ROJ TV to the same extent as the prosecutors. This has given the prosecutors, who have been criticised for their close and friendly relationship with the authorities in Ankara, plenty of opportunities to portray ROJ TV and PKK as terrorists without the risk of being proven wrong by Elmquist.

An Unjust Law

The entire trial of ROJ TV has been a curious one. This has caused many experts to comment upon the fact that the judge did not take into consideration that she was dealing with a TV-channel and should therefore judge ROJ TV by the rules that apply for the media.

If the media is not allowed to interview the part in a conflict called the terrorist, then who is? Yes, ROJ TV may have portrayed the Kurdish guerrillas as freedom fighters, but PKK is after all the resistance movement that was formed as a re-action to Turkey’s oppression of the Kurdish people, a tyranny and brutality only condemned in vague words by the rest of the world.

The Kurdish people and ROJ TV are puppets in a play dominated by world leaders. If the Kurdish people do not speak up, it is massacred by the Turkish state, but if it does speak up, it is silenced by the European Union and United States.

Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862), author of the essay “Civil Disobedience”, wrote:

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his con science to the legislator? Why has every man a con science, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. […] Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well disposed are daily made the agents of in justice.

If the law is seeking to silence the rightful rebellion of the Kurdish people against the barbaric and heartless oppression, then the law is unjust; then the governments are what Thoreau calls the agents of injustice.

ROJ TV has a conscience that cannot remain silent under Turkey’s oppressive regime and is therefore offering itself as being the mouthpiece for the Kurdish people, dwell on this for a moment: mouthpiece for the Kurdish people.

The Kurdish people consist of freedom fighters, only freedom fighters. Kurdistan is freedom for it is borderless and those who fight for freedom are Kurds.

We Face Death

Everything is relative and has to be seen in its context. ROJ TV is not the average TV-channel whose viewers are safe at home and free to speak the language they want, read the books they want, sing the songs they want or even wear the clothes they want.

There was an incident during one court session. The prosecutors were showing an excerpt from ROJ TV and they pointed out that the journalists were wearing PKK-clothing. The looks from the Kurdish audience in the courtroom must have been those of incredulity and astonishment; this was merely another ignorant comment from the prosecutors who, if they had done their research properly and if the judge had not dismissed all Elmquist’s witnesses including Leyla Zana, would have known more about the Kurdish culture and understood that the ROJ TV journalists were wearing Kurdish clothes.

ROJ TV is much more than the average TV-channel; it gives the Kurdish people a sense of unity that one rarely feels because of the brutal division and oppression of Kurdistan. It is the symbol of the peaceful Kurdish struggle for freedom; it is a mouthpiece for freedom, a mouthpiece for our freedom fighters like members of BDP, the pro-Kurdish party in Turkey, and the passionate Kurdish youth fighting for its identity.

ROJ TV is perceived a mouthpiece for terrorism because the world does not know what terrorism is.

ROJ TV is perceived a mouthpiece for terrorism because the human being is a suppressor of oppression.

ROJ TV is perceived a mouthpiece for terrorism because it is alive, it is not afraid of man-made institutions or death.

To be a freedom fighter is to be alive because being constant aware of death makes you kiss the earth softly, rest your cheek on the scabrous bark of a tree and lay your head on sweet smelling moss. To be alive is what the rest of the world fails to be because being safe and comfortable is to be dead. You are only alive if life tastes like the salty sweat that evaporates from your body when you are fighting in what seems to be Hell.

Boiling Blood

Denmark is the kingdom of the Snow Queen and the West is her empire; she reigns it with a coldness that renders her vassals motionless and speechless. The cold winds carry flakes of snow, which the Snow Queen weaves into the clothes of her subjects, thereby hindering the small pieces of the Devil’s wicked mirror from leaving the eyes and hearts of men.

The Snow Queen’s most loyal servant, the vicious and despicable troll, the worst of trolls, the Devil is laughing, his plan is working: Every single one of the cold, dead vassals see only a distortion of that which is beautiful, stunning, ravishing, alive!

The troll and his empress have a weakness, though, Hans Christian Andersen revealed: the small pieces of the troll’s wicked mirror can be melted and oh, who is better to melt ice than the burning Kurd with the boiling blood?

The Snow Queen and the wickedest of trolls can easily be defeated. Every Kurdish freedom fighter has flames shooting from his fingertips, flames kept alive by the blazing, roaring Sun.

As long as the Sun is burning so long will ROJ TV burn; because ROJ TV is the mirror in which the Sun reflects itself.

- Maspero recruits:
Why does the army only try El-Adli and Mubarak in the case of assassinating protesters in 28 January, and not trying Tantawi and Badin in the case of assassinating the protesters at Maspero? The three recruits who are tried in Maspero case are scapegoats because the members of the military council won’t be tried… If I were free, I would have been in solidarity with them even if they really killed protesters, because justice is by trying who gave the orders not to their tool which implemented the orders. 2011/12/27

- 9 months as a prisoner
Today I completed 9 months as a prisoner (275 days)… 127 days of them on a hunger strike, which means half of my imprisonment period approximately… Nothing to comment about that except: Down with the military rule! 2011/12/28

- The ministry of killers and murderers
You know that killers of protesters if would be tried (which I doubt), would spend their time in prison honored and relaxed, their salaries would normally be paid, their promotion would normally happen in time, then they would come back to service, because the law doesn’t consider killing, torturing and rape to be crimes involving moral turpitude which prevent the officer of coming back to service? It’s necessary that the law be amended, so that the officer who broke the law and entered prison be separated from service immediately, and not have a ministry of interior half of them are precedents.

- Where did all that money go?
The ministry of defense budget in Mubarak’s era was about 100 billion Egyptian pounds yearly. Tantawi was the minister of defense for 20 years in Mubarak’s era, in other words 20×100 billion, means 2 trillion Egyptian pounds, this is approximately the full budget of Egypt for full 6 years, this is of course other than the budget after the revolution and the money for the replacement for loyalty to the regime and the companies which are owned by the army and don’t pay taxes… It’s necessary that someone asks Tantawi and the military council: Where did this money go? We want a statement of account for them to know where was it spent? How much of it was wasted? How much was stolen of it? 2011/12/29

- My suffering
I can’t describe my suffering in prison… Imagine someone made a surgery without anesthesia, no matter how much he described his suffering, no one will understand his pains… I’m also like that, no matter how much I described, no one will feel how much I suffer here! 2011/12/29

- Bored
I’m very bored… I’ve been in solitary confined for two weeks and the door isn’t opened on me and I’m not allowed to talk anyone… Extreme boredom. 2011/12/30

- I remember food all the time
The whole time I’m on a hunger strike I find myself all the time thinking food and the way it is cooked… The hungry always dreams of the bread market     2011/12/30

- The revolution of 25 January 2012
All the time I hope that the same way the revolution of 25 January 2011 was a strong blow to police, I wish that 25 January 2012 will be a strong blow that the army never forgets. 2011/12/30

- Ending my hunger strike
Today I ended my hunger strike… I’ve been on a hunger strike for 130 days, 10 days of them on a thirst strike, 39 days I drank only water, 81 days drinking juices and dairy… I think that this experience in non-violent struggle I would be remembering it for the rest of my life. 2011/12/31

- I and the sheikh Ahmed Makwa
I think that you read my story which I wrote in prison, titled “The Sheikh Ahmed Makwa” (Sheikh Ahmed [clothes] iron) about the prisoner whose mates framed-up a charge for him to move him out of the ward… When I wrote this story I never thought that the same thing would happen to me, when the prisoners in the hospital made for me a case of religious contempt in order to get me out of the hospital… The world is so small! The lesson I learned from this crisis: is that there is no one nastier than police men and the fanatics. 2011/12/31

- New year’s evening
In minutes I’d start the new year… How bad that someone spends the new year’s evening while wrongly imprisoned… What’s strange is that last year at the same time, I was sad and very pessimistic of the year 2011, as if I felt what would happen to me in it… I wish that the year 2012 be the year for the freedom of mine, Egypt and humanity. 2011/12/31

- Thanks to Amir Salem
Today, Amir Salem (the famous lawyer) made a heroic stance and got the public prosecution to the prison for me to try to put an end to the violations of the ministry of interior against me… Before he came I was very sad of the oppression of cronies of police to me, but what he did elevated my morale very much… Thanks, Amir Salem, you helped my to start the new year with a smile     2011/12/31

Related links:
* Sheikh Ahmed Makwa (Sheikh Ahmed [clothes] iron)
* Updates after re-sentencing
* Details of the incident of assaulting Maikel (in Arabic)