On December 28th, 2011, F-16 warplanes launched an attack on villagers in Roboski village of the Kurdish district of Şırnak in Turkey. On their way back to their village, a group of people, who were transporting cheap fuel into Turkey from Iraq, were exposed to bombardment by four F-16 fighter jets.

34 members of the group, including 17 children, were killed as a result of the airstrike. Some were as young as 12.

And today, 1,5 years after the massacre, the families of the victims of the Roboski massacre have been punished with an administrative fine of 3 thousand Turkish Liras and the specially authorized prosecutor has called the families to testify on the grounds that they have performed a commemoration to mark the 500th day of the massacre.

The families of the 34 victims have been fined by the Turkish court due to border violation during the commemorative ceremony.  The families walked to the border between Turkey and Federal Kurdistan to mark the 500th day of the massacre and left flowers on the border in memory of their loved ones who died in the massacre.

Having been exposed to an investigation, the families have also been called to the chief public prosecutor’s office of their province to testify.

Veli Encu, who has lost his family members, said that an investigation has been launched against everyone who walked to the border in order to leave flowers on the place where their family members were killed.

Encü added that an investigation has been conducted to all 34 families:

Züleyha Encü, my 11-year-old sister, and Cahide Encü, who were not even there during the ceremony, have also been called to testify.

Ferhat Encu who lost 29 family members in the massacre made a statement concerning the ruling:

So it was not enough for the specially authorized prosecutor of Diyarbakır to forward the case of Roboski to the military prosecutor’s office under the pretense of “lack of jurisdiction”.

Using the commemoration that took place at the scene of the massacre on the occasion of its 500^th day as an excuse, they have imposed an administrative fine of 3000 Turkish Liras on us and also sent a notification of testimony. These proceedings have been started for about 130 – 150 people.

This decision taken by the Turkish court following the massacre has revealed the “status” of Kurds living in Turkey once again.  It has also unveiled the policies of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) that has proven the fact that it is not different from the previous Turkish governments in carrying out policies to accelerate the denial and annihilation of Kurds.

First of all, it should be emphasized that the massacre in Roboski was conducted by the Turkish state. It was not a coincidence that this massacre took place just after the meeting of the National Security Council (MGK).

And this massacre is the consequence of the pro-war policies of the AKP government. The so-called “advanced democracy” and “openings” of the AKP government are simply a disguise to cover up its repressive policies accompanied by bombardments.

Even though Kurds have been denied all their national rights ever since the establishment of the Turkish Republic, pro-Kurdish legal political parties have continuously come up with their plans and suggestions for peace and the PKK has also proven its dedication to a possible democratic solution for the Kurdish issue through the several ceasefires that it has announced. (The longest ceasefire between 1999 and 2004 as well as other unilateral ceasefires in 1993, 1995, 1998, 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2010)

So Kurds are very well aware of the fact that the war should be terminated and an honorable, democratic and just peace must be achieved.

Fazel Hawramy wrote in the Guardian that “The bombing of innocent villagers by the Turkish army demands justice. Relations with the Kurds depend on it.”

However, the Turkish state has done nothing to ease the pain of the families of the victims.

And even 1,5 years after the massacre, the families are still insulted and punished before the eyes of the whole world.

Over a month ago, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) began withdrawing its guerillas from the Kurdish region in Turkey (Northern Kurdistan) as a part of a settlement process which has been reportedly launched by the AKP government and Abdullah Ocalan, the head of the PKK, in a bid to resolve the Kurdish issue.

Now that the attitude of the Turkish government towards the Roboski massacre has become even more humiliating and unjust, what outcomes will emerge out of the withdrawal of the PKK guerrillas from the Kurdish region in Turkey is a serious and alarming question waiting to be answered before it is too late.

According to HRANA, two Kurds died after setting themselves on fire just 2 weeks ago in front of the main administrative office in the Kurdistan Province. The two men, both followers of the religion Yârsân, protested Iranian prison authorities’ treatment of Keyumars Tamnak, a member of their religion, who shaved off Tamnak’s mustache, a physical attribute of the followers of Yârsân.

One of the men, Hassan Razavi, suffered 60 % burns on his body. He was brought to a hospital in Tehran and is now under police watch; he is not allowed to see anyone.

The day after Razavi’s self-immolation, on June 5, 2013, Nimkard Tahari, another follower of Yârsân, set himself on fire. He died on the way to the hospital and was buried the next day under increased security measures.

During the funeral of Tahari, people protested in front of the administrative office in the Kurdistan Province, demanding officials to meet with them. The protest was broken up by police forces but members of Yârsân have threatened to set themselves on fire if action is not taken.

Followers of Yârsân are concentrated both in Iran and Iraq and their members are mostly ethnic Kurds. According to HRANA, leaders of Yârsân have been threatened by the Iranian Intelligence Agency in the city of Sahneh.

In December of 2011, a group of 38 young Kurdish men were detected travelling through a smuggling route near the town of Uludere by an American predator drone. Not long after, a Turkish military jet flew over the same spot and dropped a bomb on the caravan. Of the group, 34 were killed. The attack was intended for PKK fighters, but the men — many of them teenage boys — were only civilians attempting to smuggle gasoline from Iraq into Turkey. The massacre was so vicious families looking for their loved ones couldn’t identify the remains. The slaughter signalled complete disregard by the Turkish government for Kurdish life. Erdogan’s response was seen as dismissive and insufficently repentant for the tragedy.

When Kurds took to the streets in Diyarbakir in massive numbers to call for government accountability and a thorough investigation of the matter, police responded with violence. Protesters were attacked with police batons and tear gas, and they vollied back with stones and molotov cocktails. In Istanbul, more than a thousand Kurds flooded Taksim Square in anger, and police dispersed the crowd once more with tear gas and water cannons. In Ankara, Kurdish protesters peacefully carried images of the dead and rallied for an investigation into the incident.

Though these demonstrations of opposition were widespread and the calls by the Kurdish community for government accountability loud and constant, the event barely registered in Turkish media. Newspapers barely covered the attack. The news item only began making traction in Western media when the U.S.’s role in the massacre was revealed, and even then it was periphery news, a  minor aside in bigger news on American-Turkish relations.

But these protests were larger in size and scope than the initial Gezi Park protests that have now enraptured the world. News analysts and journalists were quick to herald these recent demonstrations a “Turkish Spring” as Turkish activists attempted to stop the demolition of Taksim Square’s Gezi Park with protests, sit-ins and an occupation of the park. The display of defiance at Taksim Square inspired comparisons to Egypt’s Tahrir Square and even China’s famous Tiananmen Square. The protests have grown, galvanizing broad support all across Turkey, not just for the preservation of Gezi Park but for dramatic reforms in Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan’s administration. This, all spurred by an effort to save the trees that lined Gezi Park.

What makes these protests more worthy than the Uludere Massacre demonstrations? Kurdish protesters calling for the justice of their dead loved ones suffered the same response by Turkish police as did the Gezi Park protesters: water cannons, tear gas, batons. Kurds in Turkey have been participating in protests long before the Uludere Massacre, demanding reforms to Erdoğan’s government to stop the human rights violations of their community– and Taksim Square has long been the site of these protests.  In April 2011, more than 2000 Kurdish protesters took to the square to condemn the Turkish elections board for banning 12 Kurdish politicians from running. Police pelted them with tear gas cannisters.

Kurds have born the brunt of police aggression for years, continuing to protest despite the threat of arrest, imprisonment and abuse, and seldom have non-Kurd Turks joined in the struggle. But it was the threat of the Gezi Park demolition, not the brutal death of 34 young Kurdish men, that compelled non-Kurd Turks to finally take to the square in anger. If media attention is any measure, the Gezi Park protests bear a stronger threat to the Erdogan administration than did the Kurdish protest for the Uludere victims. It’s a discouraging insight into the inferior appraisal of Kurdish lives by their fellow Turks — worse, it indicates a Turkish denial to legitimize Kurdish agency. Not only are Kurdish protests not afforded equal media coverage, they also don’t warrant support by their Turkish countrymen.

The Gezi Park protests could very well culminate into revolution. If anything the past few years has shown us, it’s that the power of protest is no easy thing to devalue. But it’s not just about bringing about change — it’s about the kind of change Turkey is willing to usher in. Change must be transformative; change must be all-inclusive. If a ‘changed’ Turkey looks like the same one we have now — a place hostile to its minorities — is it one worth fighting for at all?

Hanım Onur, the former deputy mayor of Cizre, Şırnak province in the Kurdish region in Turkey, was arrested on the 16th of September 2011 during the KCK operations where Turkish authorities targeted the Kurdish civilian opposition. She spent 18 months in prison with no valid evidence against her.

Hanım Onur is not only the former deputy mayor of Cizre but also a political activist who dedicates most of her time to the empowerment of women’s rights. She is also a mother whose children have been fighting against terminal diseases. The 5 year-old Solin has leukemia and her 7 year-old brother Mirhat suffers from epilepsy.

Solin was diagnosed with leukemia after she stayed with her mother in prison for a week. Being taken care of by her grandmother, Solin received treatment at different hospitals but was not able to respond to medication sufficiently due to the trauma she experienced as she was deprived of her parents’ love and affection for a long time.

Solin and Mirhat have spent almost two years of their lives in hospitals, courts and prisons away from their parents. Before her mother was released, Solin was singing this song in Kurdish on a TV channel:

The spring is gone
My eyes are longing for you
My wishes don’t come true
Let this longing be over
It is so painful

For several months, Hanım Onur applied to the authorities to set her free so that she could take care of her children but her application was denied by the Turkish authorities.

Campaigns were started on social media where people asked the Turkish authorities to release Onur and an online petition demanding her freedom reached more than 50,000 signatures in a few days.

At last, Hanım Onur was released from pre-trial detention on the 11th of February 2013 after the application of her lawyers stating the health conditions of her children. On the same day of her release, police raided her apartment to search for weapons but found nothing.

The story of Hanım Onur and her family is a clear picture of what it means to be a Kurd in Turkey.

Being the largest ethnic community in the world who has been denied their national freedom, Kurds have experienced many abuses of international law including genocide, crimes against humanity, torture, prohibitions on culture and language, “disappearances”, extrajudicial executions, and mass displacement for decades.

Today, the Kurdish genocide has entered a new phase in Turkey, which is the political genocide that has been going on since the KCK investigation was launched in April 2009. Nearly 8,000 people have been detained on charges of membership of an illegal organization with no convincing evidence.  The defendants include serving and former mayors, human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, trade unionists, students and members of the legal Pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).

How did “KCK operations” get started?

Being the continuation of the Democratic Society Party which was banned in December 2009, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) won a further 45 municipalities amounting to 98 municipalities in total in the March 2009 local elections. Many of those municipalities were administered by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) officials prior to the elections.

Two weeks after the local elections which the BDP won convincingly, mass arrests of Kurds referred to as “the ‘KCK operations” in the media began on 14 April 2009.

Thousands of people have been charged for alleged links to the KCK (Union of Kurdistan Communities), a body connected with the leadership of the armed PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) pursuant to those operations. If convicted, the defendants face jail sentences of between 15-years and life in prison.

The unlawful practices have also deprived 6 MPs of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) of their democratic right to be engaged in politics: Even though they won their parliamentary seats in June 2012 elections, Ibrahim Ayhan, Gulser Yildirim, Kemal Aktas, Selma Irmak, Faysal Sariyildiz and Hatip Dicle are still in prison instead of the parliament where they were entitled to enter through “democratic” elections.

Many human rights organizations raised concerns concerning the unlawful mass arrests.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) described the KCK operations as “the Turkish police casting the net ever wider in the crackdown on legal pro-Kurdish politics.”

HRW highlighted the invalidity of the means of collecting evidence for the KCK operation and Turkey’s vague definition of terrorism which is not line with international law:

The evidence against the defendants is largely based on wiretaps, surveillance of an office some of the accused frequented, intercepted email correspondence, and testimony from secret witnesses. However, there is scant evidence to suggest the defendants engaged in any acts that could be defined as terrorism as it is understood in international law. Turkey’s Anti-Terrorism Law contains a vague and overbroad definition of terrorism. Furthermore, court interpretations of the law make its misuse more likely.

The Human Rights Joint Platform in Turkey formed by the Human Rights Association, the Association of Helsinki Citizens and the Turkish section of Amnesty International stated that:

Consideration that working in legal organizations – i.e. municipalities, trade unions, associations and political parties – constitutes an “offence”, and designating legal and peaceful press conferences, workshops and demonstrations as offences committed upon the instructions of illegal organizations, runs counter to the principle of the rule of law.

Amnesty International also announced its concerns regarding Turkey’s anti-terrorism legislation and its application:

The definition of terrorism in this law is overly broad, vague and lacks the level of legal certainty required by international human rights law. Prosecutions brought under anti-terrorism legislation have frequently been based on secret witness testimony that cannot be examined by defense lawyers.

The arrests openly violate the principles of international human rights law including the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. However, this situation comes as no surprise if we consider the fact that the treatment of Kurds in Turkey has been an absolute affront to the basic universal human rights for decades.

The Turkish state suppressed the Kurdish identity since the establishment of the Turkish Republic.  Today, as a result of the struggle that Kurds have continued for long years, the state cannot deny the fact that Kurds exist but it still insists on not recognizing their right to live freely. The political “status” that Kurds have in Turkey today is to become political prisoners in their indigenous regions.

Having been subjected to the worst disasters of mankind including ethnic cleansing, mass graves, chemical attacks and bombings, Kurds are now faced with mass arrests and are still falling victim to various discriminatory policies of oppression at the hands of the Turkish government.

Azad Tokmak has started a new freedom campaign for his mother, Fatma Tokmak, a political prisoner who suffers from serious heart diseases.

The freedom campaign aims to get his mother released from prison so that she can undergo a proper treatment.

Azad was taken into custody in 1996 with his mother after a police raid when he was only one and a half years old. Having been detained on charges of “aiding and abetting the PKK”, Fatma Tokmak was heavily tortured and developed a heart disease during detention.

Police officers at the Anti-Terror Branch several times put out cigarettes on the body of Azad, who was only one and a half years old back then, to make his mother speak Turkish, a language she did not know. He still has scars caused by the cigarettes on his body.

You can read his story here.

“I am 18 years old. I have not seen my mother outside of prison for 16 years,” Tokmak says.

Azad Tokmak is calling for everyone to support his campaign addressing the President and Minister of Justice of Turkey:

To:

Mr. Sadullah Ergin, Ministry of Justice of Turkey

Mr. Abdullah Gül, President of Turkey

Dear Mr. President Abdullah Gül and Minister of Justice Sadullah Ergin

I am Azad Tokmak. I am the son of Fatma Tokmak, who has been jailed in Bakırköy Women’s Prison. My life stopped at a torture center when I was one and a half years old because it was not only my body but also my soul that was tortured there. The torture and persecution exposed to my mother did not intimidate her but my screams shot her in the heart each time.

16 years have passed. My mother is still in prison for no reason due to a crime that she has not committed.

I am 18 years old now. I do not want to wait for the death my mother. I would like to experience new things with her every day. I want my mother alive, not dead. Is that too much to ask? I am waiting for your support. Thank you very much in advance.

Regards,

Azad Tokmak

You can sign the new petition here.

Three Kurdish female activists, Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Şaylemez, were horribly executed in the heart of Paris on January 9, 2013. This cold-blooded attack was committed by professionals – the Turkish “Gladio”, which is also known as the Turkish “Deep State”.

Extrajudicial killings against Kurdish intellectuals have been perpetrated by the Turkish “Gladio” for decades. This act of violence was a terror attack against the Kurds and this case is still unsolved.

Shortly after the political assassination of these three women, five young infiltrators of Kurdish origin were exposed by Kurdish guerrilla. These youths had been threatened by the Islamic Gülen Movement and Turkey’s ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party) and were sent to the Kurdish mountains to join the PKK in order to assassinate PKK executives.

Nûçe TV reporter Erdal Er has interviewed these young agents and they revealed everything in a TV-program called “Örümcek ağı” (Spider-net), which was broadcasted on the Kurdish TV-channel Nûçe TV.

One of these youngsters was student at a Gülen school and lived at a Gülen dormitory. Thirteen-year-old “Serhildan” told Erdal Er that her former school managers Beşir Çalışkan and Fevzi Kılıç forced her to study at a boarding school. They also promised that she would get scholarships if she applied to the boarding school.

“Serhildan” went to the boarding school with her parent’s permission. She met the school manager Kadriye, who was responsible for young Kurdish women at the dormitory. “Serhildan” told the reporter:

The first two weeks at the Gülen school were normal. The education was normal. Turkish police were responsible for the school security. They were wearing civil clothes. I met Yusuf Dadal there, who was responsible for the school security. My mother also met him when she visited me at the dormitory.

The fake birthday party

“Serhildan” continued and said:

One day I was told that it was Kadriye’s birthday. I didn’t want to attend her birthday party and told them that I had to study. Afterwards, the security personnel forced me to come downstairs and I did as I was told. Everything was normal.

After a while someone knocked on the door and men stepped into the salon like the mafia. There were 30 young women in the room. Juice boxes were standing on the table. The men had brought alcohol and put them on the table. We were speechless and shocked. I thought they were friends of Kadriye. I was sitting on a couch. Yusuf came and sat next to me and asked how I was feeling. I didn’t knew how I was going to answer him and I told him that I was fine. He gave me a bottle of alcohol. I had never seen something like this before. This didn’t exist in my family. My family is religious. I was frightened. I had read the Holy Quran. I didn’t want to drink but he told me that it was okay to drink it once.

All of my friends were drinking alcohol. They were sitting next to men. I drank one bottle and got drunk. I woke up in the morning. I didn’t know where I was. I saw a man laying next to me. It was Yusuf. Everything ended for me – family, school, everything. This was the end. I cried and was shattered. I was only 13-years old and I had never thought of something like this could occur in my life. They said that this [sexual intercourses] was normal. I wanted to run away but they didn’t let me go. I was caught in a trap.

Arrested and sexually abused at the police-station

Another Kurdish youth, Devrim, arrested in Diyarbakir, said:

The Turkish police brought me to the police station. They were beating me the first day and questioned me the following day. I was silent. There were three policemen – Suat, Murat and Serkan. They brought me to another room. They covered my eyes with a blindfold and sexually assaulted me. Everything was caught on camera.

I was locked up and they questioned me for two days. I told them the names of my friends. They showed me pictures of my friends and asked me if I knew them – I said yes. Shortly afterwards, they raped me twice.

“If you don’t want to be humiliated you will become an agent!”
Devrim continued:

They released me and my neighbours saw me. I went home and my mother was crying. My neighbours were crying. No one knew that I had been arrested. I didn’t tell my family. I was lying in my bed a whole day. My family was at home and the police came to my house. They had a CD and a dossier. My mother and father weren’t allowed to be in the same room as us [me and the policemen].

Murat and Serkan were also there. They threatened me and told me that I had to do as they demanded if I didn’t want to embarrass myself and my family. They told me that they would make my life miserable if I didn’t obey them.”
The Gülen movement has opened Gülen schools and mosques in every Kurdish city and almost every village. The Turkish state has established police stations (Karakol) across Kurdistan. These police stations have been established in order to kill and arrest Kurds.

Gülen schools have been established in order to assimilate Kurdish children at a young age and tempt the Kurdish children into abandoning the Kurdish struggle for human rights. The Gülen movement aims to assimilate Kurdish children by emphasizing the Ottoman ideology in school, causing many Kurds to become unaware of their cultural inheritance. Gülen followers (Gülenists) and the Turkish government are using religion to build the unity of the Turkish state and crush the Kurdish identity. The state is running a denial and annihilation policy toward the Kurds.

HPG (Kurdish People’s Defence Forces) commander Dr. Bahoz Erdal said that the Turkish state and Gülenists are indoctrinating Kurdish children in order to distance the children from the Kurdish society. Prostitution and drugs have been spread among Kurdish youth through JITEM (Turkish Army Intelligent Service) and MIT (The National Intelligence Organization) in Kurdistan.

Private schools (dershane) are another subject. These Gülen schools have been established in particularly Kurdistan and are very active in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan as well as in southern Kurdistan (Northern Iraq). The first Turkish school was founded in 1993 in Hewlêr (Erbil).

Dr. Bahoz Erdal further said that every single parent must take responsibility of their children and raise their children in a correct way so that they won’t forget their Kurdish identity, language and culture.

The Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen is the founder of the Gülen movement and runs private schools in approximately 140 countries across the world. It is an ultra-conservative society and it teaches students at Gülen schools to become faithful servants. The movement describes itself as a “faith-inspired, non-political, cultural and educational movement whose basic principles stem from Islam’s universal values, such as love of the creation, sympathy for the fellow human, compassion, and altruism.”

Fethullah Gülen says that he doesn’t want to affiliate himself or the movement with politics, but there are many hidden sides of the Gülen movement and many people are not aware of what is going on behind the scenes. He has spoken in favour of Turkey’s ruling AKP and they do share many similar goals. Moreover, many of AKP MP’s are Gülenists. Gülen and the AKP have an Islamic agenda and share a vision of promoting a greater role for Islam across Turkey as well as abroad.

Gülen is eager to give the Kurds certain rights, for instance Kurdish language schools. The Turkish AKP and Gülen movement want to create their “own” Kurds who are serving the Turkish state, the Gülen Movement and Islam. However, the Turkish state and Gülen want to silence and eliminate Kurds who are resisting Turkish control. Gülen called upon the Turkish army to attack Kurds and to annihilate their resistance. Gülen made this very clear in a video message in 2011 where he said:

Locate them, surround them, break up their units, let fire rain down upon their houses, drown out their lamentations with even more wails, cut off their roots and put an end to their cause.

In a video message from 2011 Gülen uttered disappointment over the Turkish army’s failure “to finish off a group of bandits [the PKK] in the mountains over the last 30 years.”

The Turkish army cannot silence the Kurdish resistance. Hence Gülen is targeting Kurdish children in order to assimilate them, kill them mentally, but not physically, intimidate them and send them to the Kurdish mountains in order to kill PKK executives.

The Alliance for Kurdish Rights aims to amplify diverse Kurdish voices. Views expressed by our authors and contributors are not necessarily our own. We welcome constructive and respectful feedback and discussions. If you’d like to contribute to AKR, join us.

In 2011, in the Eastern city of Benghazi, whispers of dissent gave way to riotous revolution; Libyans took to the streets in unprecedented numbers, chanting anti-regime slogans, carrying signs and waving flags signaling their defiance. Two flags that were heretofore unseen in the streets of Gaddafi’s Libya came to dominate the crowds of protesters. One was Libya’s national symbol of rebellion, a red, black and green striped flag with a white crescent moon at its center, last seen before Gaddafi’s 1969 coup.

The second flag was less recognizable. It depicted a red symbol resembling a stick figure man, set against a stripped tricolor background: light blue, lime green and yellow. This flag is the international emblem of the Amazigh people and for the first time in over 40 years, Amazigh Libyans were proudly waving it above their heads without fear of persecution.

The Amazigh, often referred to as Berbers, are an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa predating the arrival of Arabs in North Africa. They once constituted a majority in the region, but over the years, as Arab conquerors overtook the land, the Amazigh not only dwindled in numbers but also underwent an “Arabization” of their identity. Some of this occurred naturally, as more Arab-speakers settled in Libya, but often times it was a forced “conversion” – as it was under the Gaddafi regime.

With the publication of his Green Book in 1973, Libya’s new revolutionary leader set about an active erasure of Amazigh cultural, social and ethnic identity. He began by banning any books that acknowledged existence of the Amazigh. He outlawed practice of Tamzight, the Amazigh language, dismissing it as a “dialect” of Arabic. He prohibited use of Amazigh names. Amazighi celebrations and cultural traditions were forbidden. Gaddafi propagated a Libya that was wholly and purely Arab, and accused the Amazigh people of being colonial projects intended to divide Libyans.

“You can call yourselves whatever you want inside your homes – Berbers, Children of Satan, whatever – but you are only Libyans when you leave your homes,” Gaddafi was quoted as saying in a U.S. Embassy cable to Amazigh leaders.

Gaddafi’s revolutionary committees targeted Amazigh communities for raids, arrests and harassment. They attacked the homes of known Amazigh activists and artists. Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables reveal the details of the brutal assault on an Amazigh town in 2009.

Revolutionary Committee and al-Ghad members threw stones at and beat [Yifren] residents who gathered to protest the attacks. A number of businesses and other residences were damaged, including several that were burned. Police threatened to imprison anyone who attempted to interfere with the Revolutionary Committee and al-Ghad members. Revolutionary Committee and al-Ghad members chanted anti-Berber slogans (“death to the Berber dogs”) throughout the incident.

It was no surprise then that, when the call for insurrection came, the Amazigh towns were among the first to rise against the regime and join the battle for freedom. Amazigh fighters were crucial to the victory of the opposition, maintaining anti-Gaddafi strongholds in the Nafusa Mountains and facilitating supply routes in the region.

In many ways, the Amazigh struggle parallels the narrative of Kurds in Syria, Iraq, Turkey in Iran. Kurds residing between the borders of those countries are systematically persecuted in the same manner as their Amazigh counterparts in Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Kurdish oppression is often state-sanctioned — erased from the history books, prohibited from speaking in their mother tongue, denied — in some places — to call themselves by their Kurdish names, and limited from participating in the political process. Today, Kurds across the region fear unprovoked attacks and unjustified arrests.  Their marginalization from political, economic, and social spheres are symptomatic of institutionalized racism.

It’s significant, however, that the first signs of resistance to oppressive regimes comes from groups like these: not the majority but the anguished minority. Like the Kurds, the Amazigh had been battling the Gaddafi administration for recognition of their identity and culture for decades before the revolution. And when the revolution finally came, they were the first willing to risk their lives for better opportunities — not just for themselves, but for the country as a whole. Similarly, the future will look back on this time in Kurdish history more favorably and admirably than the present; it will remember Kurdish struggles as the first manifestations of revolution and change.

It’s often said that civilization’s moral character is best measured by how it treats its weakest members. But this passive statement dismisses the agency of its subject. A far more accurate contention would hold that civilization’s capacity for profound societal change is best gauged by the strength of its weakest members. By that measure, civilization will soon find itself grateful for the Kurdish — and Amazigh — members it disregards now.

Mütha Çetin, a correspondent working for Dicle News Agency (mostly covers news about the Kurdish issue) has been detained in Istanbul, Fırat News Agency (ANF) reported.

Çetin has been detained by police officers for an unknown reason while trying to cover the story of a woman who had been exposed to violence in the Şişli district of Istanbul and has been taken to Harbiye police headquarters.

Update:

Mütha Çetin was detained yesterday evening while trying with her cell-phone camera to record a police officer who was committing violence against a woman.

She was released late at night after giving a statement and received a report disclosing that she had been battered, making a complaint against the police.

Speaking to Bianet, Çetin said that a police officer argued with a driver on Şişli Elmadağ road and after the driver ran away to back streets, the police officer committed violence against the foreign woman inside the car. Çetin wanted to shoot the violence with her cell-phone camera but was battered by the police officer and prevented from recording the scene of violence.

Receiving a report regarding the battering and making a complaint against the police, Çetin said that the police also made a complaint against her due to alleged battery charge.

She and the other woman who has been exposed to police violence are planning to file a criminal complaint against the police, she added

Since 2006, thousands of children in Turkey, some as young as 12, have been prosecuted under the anti-terrorism legislation, solely for their alleged participation in demonstrations focused on issues of concern to members of the Kurdish community, Amnesty International reported.

Last year, Dicle News Agency covered the torture, rape and sexual harassment that Kurdish children were exposed to in their prison term in the prison of Pozantı, a town based in Adana, Southern Turkey.

Columnist Yıldırım Türker wrote about the human rights violations that Kurdish children have been subjected to in prisons as follows:

The women, children and men of the region were subjected to inhuman acts of brutality which we tend to forget immediately after reading or hearing them as if they were translated from quotes from hell. They are still being subjected to the same.

There are thousands of Pozantis in Turkey. Thousands of centers work day and night to make ten thousands of Kurdish kids feel sorry that they even exist.

The GUE/NGL group at the European Parliament also released a report investigating allegations of sexual, physical and mental abuse suffered by child prisoners in Pozanti M-Type Juvenile Prison:

What has taken place at Pozanti prison outside of Adana, Turkey, reveals just how badly children are being abused and mistreated under the laws. According to the report by members of the European Parliament, children in the prison were deprived of food and medical treatment, beaten while naked with iron bars by prison staff, and sexually abused by adult prisoners. As H.D. a 15-year-old, reported:

“Some of our friends were molested many times. They beat us and forced us to undress. What we have been through cannot be put into words.”

At prison, the most pressing problem for them was sexual abuse, A.K. stated. However, he recalled further problems he experienced in prison, “The convicts forced our friends to get up in the middle of the night. They broke their heads right in front of our eyes. But the prison administration always tried to cover up the issue.”

Ramazan Özalp, a Kurdish political prisoner in Antep Prison in Turkey, became  paralysed due to the tumor in his brain. Despite this and having undergone 3 medical operations, Özalp has still not been released from prison, DIHA (Dicle News Agency) reported.

Violations of rights experienced by ill prisoners in Turkey continue every single day. As the funerals of ill prisoners are coming out of Turkish prisons, the authorities still remain unconcerned with the alarming situation.

Ramazan Özalp was detained on charges of “being a member of an organization” and “aiding and abetting an illegal organization” while he was performing prayers at a mosque in the Kurdish province of Şırnak in 1993. Özalp is still held in prison despite his report documenting that a tumor developed in his brain when he was in prison.

Özalp has had the tumor in his brain for three years and nothing has changed in his state of health despite the three medical operations he has undergone, Rewşen Kök, Ramazan Özalp’s sister, said.

Rewşen Kök stated that his brother is trying to survive despite his paralysed body and asked for his instant release from the prison.

“Özalp’s illness is permanent and has caused him to become disabled. Özalp is aging; therefore, he must receive treatment and his state of health must be followed up,” Özalp’s medical report documents.

Rewşen Kök explained:

Doctors say that if my brother does not get a comprehensive treatment, it might cause further progression of his disease and even lead to his death.

While he underwent a medical operation, they put him in handcuffs. What have we done to deserve all those things? Will the state release him after he dies? Is that the way that the state takes sincere steps?

I don’t want my brother’s funeral to come out of that prison. All his needs are met by his friends in the ward. His wife is also sick and their financial situation is not sufficient. He has a son and the state has enlisted him in the army.

What kind of a peace process is that? Why are they treating our people so badly? The state must take sincere steps for peace. We do not want to see people dying anymore.