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Hawzhin Azeez 31 posts 0 comments

Dr. Hawzhin Azeez holds a PhD in political science and International Relations, from the University of Newcastle, Australia. She is currently Co-Director of The Kurdish Center for Studies (English branch) as well as the creator of The Middle Eastern Feminist. Previously she has taught at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS), as well as being a visiting scholar at their CGDS (Center for Gender and Development). She has worked closely with refugees and IDPs in Rojava while a member of the Kobane Reconstruction Board after its liberation from ISIS. Her areas of expertise include gender dynamics, post-conflict reconstruction and nation-building, democratic confederalism, and Kurdish studies.

Abducted in Rojhilat: Iran’s Kidnapping of Werîşe Muradî

“To disappear people is to deny their existence, their rights, and their dignity. Forced disappearances are an assault on the essence of our humanity.” — Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the UN In the heart of Rojhilat, the Eastern Kurdistan region of Iran, the sudden disappearance of Werîşe Muradî, a passionate advocate for the […]

SOS: Turkey is Destroying Rojava’s Civilian Infrastructure

Rojava, north and eastern Syria, a region already ravaged by years of conflict and instability brought on by ISIS, Assad regime attacks, and Turkish invasions plus occupations, has now been plunged into a deeper humanitarian crisis as Turkey’s Air Force sets out to systematically leave all civilian infrastructure in ruins. Water, gas, and electricity stations that […]

Serê Kaniyê: Four Years of Ankara’s Terrorizing Occupation

Wherever Turkey occupies in the AANES region of north and eastern Syria (Rojava), allied jihadists, criminal gangs, and ruthless mercenaries soon follow; and wherever these occupying hoards go, so does indiscriminate and extrajudicial killings, murders, mutilations, lootings, gender based violence, occupation of homes, and destruction of farmlands, orchards, and livestock. In essence, wherever Turkey and […]

Turkey Rains Down Terror on the Kurdish Civilians of Rojava

“The ongoing wave of Turkish attacks on civil infrastructure in North and East Syria need to be understood as part of a wider plan by the Turkish state. Erdogan is following a fanatical ideology that seeks to expand the dream of a new Ottoman Empire in the Middle East.” — Exclusive YPJ statement to The […]

Turkey’s Unofficial Military: Mercenaries & Jihadists

“To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: they make a desolation and they call it peace.” — Tacitus, Roman historian (56-120 AD) Turkey’s growing geopolitical influence has contributed to the further destabilization of regional balances, deepening of conflicts, and promotion of extremism. In the Neo-Ottoman quest to increase their reach, Turkey has established […]

Turkish Drone Strikes: Acts of State Terrorism

Turkey is emerging as one of the leading countries in the world when it comes to using military drones, especially for targeted assassinations. This trend has had devastating impacts for the Kurds, especially for those in Rojava whose civil servants and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) officials remain key targets. Likewise, in Southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq) […]

Reflecting on Jîna’s Legacy: One Year After Her Murder

A year has passed since the 22 year old Kurdish woman, Jîna Amini was brutally murdered at the hands of the Iranian morality police for incorrectly wearing her hijab. The Iranian regime and the coroner unequivocally rejected accusations that she died from blows to her head and limbs. Following her shocking death, mass protests erupted […]

Contesting Kirkuk: Protest & Bloodshed

The city of Kirkuk (Kerkûk in Kurdish) holds a special place in the hearts and imaginations of many Kurds, which is why it is referred to as “The Kurdish Jerusalem” or “Our Jerusalem.” Moreover, because of its immense untapped oil wealth, the city has been viewed as the key puzzle piece to one day funding […]

Surviving the 74th Genocide: Şengal’s Yezidis Endure

The Yezidi community is one of the most oppressed and marginalized minorities in the world. As a legacy of at least 74 genocides throughout their history, the number of Yezidis have dwindled to near extinction levels. From the 14th to the 18th century, the Yezidi population fell from 23 million to 2 million, before falling […]

Vian Hussein: On Painting War Displacement & Belonging

Vian Hussein is a rising Kurdish artist from Rojava, living in the UK. Her powerfully emotive pieces breach the boundaries between art and activism and moves us boldly across the emotional terrain of identity, gender, and belonging. Vian is a child of the Syrian Civil War, the offspring of displacement and asylum, of long treacherous […]

The Treaty of Lausanne: The Crime of the Century

History is a terrifying place for the Kurds. It is a place fraught with geopolitical losses, displacement, subjugations, and horrific human rights violations. Undoubtedly, the Kurds have been the consistent losers in the historical and geopolitical events in the region in the past century. A series of treaties and events which occurred in early 20th […]

Lausanne Treaty: From Statelessness to Citizenshipless Kurds

The Lausanne treaty resulted in catastrophic consequences for the Kurds, the most obvious of which was statelessness. However, long after the imposition of the treaty, the Kurds continued to suffer a range of state imposed policies and consequences that affected their capacity to live with basic human rights and dignity. One such repercussion was the […]

Nûdem Durak: 19 Years of Prison for Singing in Kurdish

Turkey remains one of the most oppressive regimes towards its minorities, especially its Kurdish population. The Kurds make up over 18% of Turkey’s 85 million citizens, yet face systemic state oppression, violence, and injustices. Turkey has long been accused by international organizations and human rights groups of engaging in culturicide and linguicide against the Kurds, […]

The Dengbêj: Keepers of Kurdish Memory & History

Dengbêjî should not be viewed as an outmoded and dying artform, primitive and unwilling to carry itself across the treacherous road of modernization into contemporary society, but rather as the song of an oppressed people long denied a voice, a place and the right to their very existence. Dengbêjî is as Kurdish, as indigenous to its identity as the Zagros and Qandil mountains are integral to the Kurds.

Ismet Tastan: Pillar of the Australian Kurdish Community

Ismet Tastan is one of those rare Kurds whose tireless efforts for the Kurdish people deserves detailed attention and praise. I have known Ismet for well over a decade and can say with confidence that his selfless passion and unending love for the Kurdish cause served as one of my inspirations and my own political […]

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM): The Hidden Shame of Kurdish Women

Kurdistan remains a widely occupied and terrorized terrain. For decades various forms of colonial and imperial violence has been imposed on the Kurds, ranging from ethnic cleansing, genocides, chemical weapons, mass execution of fighting-aged males, bombardments, systemic environmental destruction including widespread destruction of thousands of villages, forced migration and violent assimilation policies and more. The […]

The Global Responsibility of Supporting Rojava’s ISIS Trials

On Saturday the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (AANES) announced that it will commence trials of the thousands of ISIS militants it has held in detention since 2019. The Kurdish-led administration of northeast Syria (Rojava) had back in 2020 announced a similar trial with International Monitors led by the Swedish government but such […]

The Unfathomable Charisma of Hapsa Khan

Challenges in Documenting the Historical Role of Kurdish Women The nature of the ‘Kurdish Question’ has ensured that Kurdish women have historically played a prominent role in the liberation of their people across the four parts of Greater Kurdistan. More recently, at least since 2001 there has been intense interest in the historical and modern […]

Reviewing Sherko Bekas’ ‘The Secret Diary of a Rose’

Sherko Bekas (Kurdish: Şêrko Bêkes‎) born on the 2nd of May 1940, was one of the most pre-eminent Kurdish poets of the 20th Century. Hailing from Sulaymaniyah in Bashur (Southern Kurdistan/northern Iraq) as the son of the Kurdish poet Fayak Bekas, Sherko was introduced to poetry and literature from an early age. He would go […]

Shivan Fazil: On Researching Youth Identity in the KRI

The youth in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) remain one of the most marginalized groups within society; their voices muted, barely able to rise above a whisper among the ruckus and clamor of the older conservative generation whose views on tradition, culture, religion and politics continue to suffocate the young and the brave. Born […]

Orientalism’s Historical Impact on Kurdish Studies

Historically, research in Kurdistan and about the Kurds entailed outsiders who have presented Kurdish identity and history to fit within the margins of their Eurocentric worldview and interests. The literature that emerged including travelogues, reports, diaries, novels, and historical writings emerged from the perspective of legitimizing Western imperial objectives and justifying its cultural hegemony, while […]

Reviewing ‘Kurdish Culture and Identity’

The book ‘Kurdish Culture and Identity’ edited by Philip Kreyenbroek and Christine Allison and published in 1996, is an important work in the repository of works written about Kurdish culture, history, and identity. It arose from the milieu of the 1990s, which proved to be one of the most important and productive periods in the […]

Kurdish Journalism Day: Why April 22 Matters

Every year, Kurdish journalists and people across the four regions of Greater Kurdistan celebrate Kurdish Journalism Day on the 22nd of April to commemorate the publication of the first Kurdish newspaper, ‘Kurdistan’. Such celebrations are important, because one of the major forms of repression that the Kurds have experienced across Kurdistan has involved suppression of language […]

Mira Ibrahim: On Giving Voice to the Kurds of Occupied Afrin

In early 2018, when Turkey’s dictator Erdoğan announced his intention to attack and invade the Kurdish canton of Afrin (Efrîn), one of the three liberated areas of Rojava (north Syria), many Kurds in the diaspora knew that another period of intense activism was going to be required. Then, as the Turkish military began indiscriminately shelling […]

Lukman Ahmad: On Painting the Magic of Kurdistan

There are very few painters alive today who can match the explosively vivid use of colors as Lukman Ahmad. The following is an exclusive KCS interview with the acclaimed Kurdish artist and painter Lukman Ahmad in anticipation of his solo exhibition entitled “The Other Side of My Journey” debuting on March 11th at the Cross […]

Kurdish Women of Afrin: Targets of Occupation

In January 2018, Turkey’s military launched an unprovoked cross border operation against the Afrin (Efrîn) region of Rojava in northwest Syria. The military invasion was cynically named “Operation Olive Branch” (an Orwellian reference to somehow offering peace through war), which went on to cause massive infrastructural damage and civilian suffering to those in the city […]

Reviewing Kajal Ahmad’s ‘Handful of Salt’

Traditionally, when we hear the voices of Kurdish women from exile in the diaspora, it is often from the lens of the colossal tragedy of post-conflict issues, involving the tirade of political violence, ethnic cleansing, and forced assimilation that has resulted in the murder of her mother tongue and that of her children. Modernity and […]

Reviewing Izady’s ‘The Kurds: A Concise Handbook’

Since the start of the 20th century, the discipline of Kurdish studies and the West’s understanding of Kurdish culture lagged behind all other ethnographic analyses produced on the Middle East. Consequently, the images produced about Kurdish culture and identity were often fragmented and incomplete at best. At worst, they were erroneous and demonstrated a total […]

An Enduring Legacy: The Republic of Mahabad & Qazi Muhammad

The death of a Kurdish woman, Jina (Mehsa) Amini galvanized the diverse ethno-religious groups across Iran towards an uprising that has reverberated across the globe. Jina’s death at the hands of the Iranian morality police highlighted not only the plight of women as second-class citizens across Iran, but also the deeply oppressed and persecuted nature […]

Silent Genocide: Kirkuk & Kurdish Areas Face Ethnic Cleansing

The year 2022 saw the rise of the plight and situation of the Kurds to international attention. From South Kurdistan (Northern Iraq, Basur) being repeatedly bombed and subject to drone strikes both from Turkey and Iran, to Northern Syria (Rojava) subjected to chemical weapons use, airstrikes and drone attacks and the Kurds in Iran (Rojhilat) […]