PKK

[Excerpt from the 1966 film The Battle of Algiers] Reporter: “Mr. Ben M’hidi, isn’t it a filthy thing to use women’s baskets to carry explosives for killing people?” Larbi Ben M’hidi: “Doesn’t it seem even filthier to drop napalm bombs on defenseless villages, wreaking even greater havoc? It would be better if we, too, had […]

On December 28, 2011, the Dutch journalist Fréderike Geerdink was in Istanbul when the Turkish army massacred members of a Kurdish convoy transporting goods between Turkey and Iraq. Witness reports revealed during the investigation that it occurred with the knowledge of the authorities. The government of northern Kurdistan made sure that people remained absorbed in […]

Dear Znar, How are you? did you sleep last night in yet another bed in the house of friends who gave you a temporary place to hide? How long does it take the European Court of Human Rights to decide whether Sweden can put you on a plane to Turkey? I hope and pray that […]

Since the far-right government, Justice and Development Party (AKP), and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Coalition has tightened its grip on the reins of the Turkish state following the failed coup, two colonial projects have clearly dominated foreign policy. First, the “Misak-ı Millî (National Oath)” document signed in 1920, which sought a partnership with the Kurds […]

“I don’t like having to shoot my gun. I wish there was another way to stop Turkey’s inhumanity, but there isn’t. We shoot to live. They shoot to kill.”  — A PKK guerrilla woman I interviewed in 2014 To paraphrase Arundhati Roy and Stokely Carmichael’s observations on the issue, non-violence is a piece of theatre […]