Turkey Still Besieges Its Kurds

Original Article

  • “They attacked even the wounded. Many people throughout Kurdistan have been arrested wholesale lately. Some of them participated in the election campaigns for our party. Many Turkish mainstream media outlets distort the facts and put the blame of the conflicts on Kurds. But it was the police that started the violence and conflicts… they murdered civilians knowingly and intentionally” — Ferhat Encu, Kurdish MP for the People’s Democratic Party (HDP).
  • “The police broke F.A.’s teeth, tortured him, beat him and inserted a gun in his anus. … When we saw him, there were bruises and marks of torture all over his body.” — Zozan Acar, F.A.’s lawyer.
  • “We sent ambulances, but the police opened fire even at the ambulances. They open fire at anyone who go outside.” — Seyfettin Aydemir, co-mayor of Silopi.
  • Even though the AKP won the majority of votes this week, on Nov. 3 a curfew was imposed on the Kurdish town of Silvan — for the sixth time since Aug. 17. Just before the curfew, Muslum Tayar, 22, was killed by the police. They shot him from their armored vehicle.

For the past few years, the AKP government has proudly proclaimed that it wanted to resolve the Kurdish issue: “bring peace” to Turkey. But the government has kept attacking Kurds, including their legal political party, the People’s Democratic Party (HDP). Continue reading