UN must reverse its aid cuts in Syria

PEACE IN KURDISTAN

 Peace in Kurdistan is dismayed by the UN decision to cut humanitarian aid to Northern Syria, which exposes 4 million people who are already facing a dire situation, to the prospect of no daily aid, including food and basic medicines. We call for this short-sighted decision to be urgently reversed. Continue reading “UN must reverse its aid cuts in Syria”

(VIDEO) Lindsey German Speaks About Co-founding Stop the War Coalition, the Iinvasion of Iraq, and Turkish State Repression

9 November 2019|Lindsey German and Alaettin Sinayic

Convening Chair of Stop the War Coalition Lindsey German sat down with Kurdish journalist Alaettin Sinayic to discuss  the founding of the StWC, the illegal invasion of Iraq, and the policies of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They also discuss the potential of a further conflict with NATO and Russia as a result of the Turkish invasion of Syria as well as the “NATO project” more generally and plans of future demonstrations against NATO.

NEWS IN BRIEF Update – Turkish invasion of Rojava/North East Syria – No 7 9 – 17 Nov 2019

For all of the latest developments, see these sources:

Rojava Information Center:

https://twitter.com/RojavaIC

https://rojavainformationcenter.com

ANF English:

https://anfenglishmobile.com/

Hawar News:

https://www.hawarnews.com/en/

Women Defend Rojava:

http://womendefendrojava.net/en/

 

NEWS

‘No Friends But the Mountains.’ What Life Looks Like for the Kurds of Syria, Now That the U.S. Has Pulled Back
14 Nov 2019 | Karl Vick, TIME
The modern Middle East was formed exactly 100 years ago when, in the wake of World War I, the victors began creating new countries. Among the populations deemed deserving of nationhood — along with Armenians and Azeris — were the Kurds.
https://time.com/longform/kurds-syria-refugees/ Continue reading “NEWS IN BRIEF Update – Turkish invasion of Rojava/North East Syria – No 7 9 – 17 Nov 2019”

Jineology – science of women, science of revolution

Camilla Power, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, University of East London

“If women combine forces they can make a huge revolution”

With these words,  Fouwza Yusuf, cochair of Kongreya Star launched the founding congress of the Women’s Council of Northern and Eastern Syria (Jun 14 2019).

Practical evidence for women “making ourselves powerful” and “building a new life” was all around us. As a Perwerde delegation of US and European academics invited by Rojava University, we brought a message of solidarity to this historic congress. It was one of the most multicultural events I have witnessed with translations across four, five or more languages, and representation from multiethnic and multireligious communities, Islamic, Christian and also the preAbrahamic Yezidi. Women wore dazzling celebratory costumes showing off their traditions, alongside the more practical military fatigues of the YPJ (Women’s Protection Units). Continue reading “Jineology – science of women, science of revolution”

Statement of the Democratic Autonomous Administration (DAA) Concerning Turkey’s Threats

The Turkish state has permanently and continuously launched its threats of aggression on the DAA areas of north and east of Syria, and these threats have increased recently by the mobilization of Turkish military forces on the northern border of Syria in the east of the Euphrates, aiming to foil the democratic project and destabilize the state of security and coexistence among the components of the Syrian people.

What happened in Afrin more than a year ago, when the Turkish regime and the terrorist militias implementing the Turkish agenda launched aggression on the city is the best witness to the hypocrisy and lies of this regime through displacement and looting. Continue reading “Statement of the Democratic Autonomous Administration (DAA) Concerning Turkey’s Threats”

KURDISH NEWS BRIEFING, 7 MAY 2019 – 27 MAY 2019

NEWS

1.We Salute the Resistance
2.Jailed Kurdish artist Zehra Doğan recalls war at Tate Modern
3.Hunger strikes called off after Ocalan sees lawyers – ‘resistance has prevailed’
4.Turkey to attain peace with efforts of PKK leader Ocalan, says pro-Kurdish HDP, 26 May 2019
5.Hunger strikers end action in Turkey after call from jailed Kurdish leader Ocalan
6.Öcalan: I expect the hunger strikes to come to an end
7.Sajid Javid condemned for ‘criminalising’ fighters against Isis
8.Saturday Mothers awarded Human Rights, Peace and Democracy award
9.AKP official blames Istanbul loss on party’s alienation of Kurdish voters
10.CPT Visits İmralı Island Prison
11.France reopens inquiry into 2013 murder of Kurdish militants
12.Today a NATO country sentenced this woman to nearly two years in jail for journalism
13.Prisoners’ mothers tortured with strip searches
14.Blocked from humanitarian aid, Afrin Kurds experience hardships in Serdem Camp
15.Turkey held talks with PKK leader Ocalan in bid to resolve Syria issues

Continue reading “KURDISH NEWS BRIEFING, 7 MAY 2019 – 27 MAY 2019”

Survivors of the Syrian Wars

Patrick Cockburn

When I first visited Kurdish-held territory in northern Syria, early in 2015, it was rapidly expanding. With the help of massive US air-power, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) had just retaken the city of Kobani from Islamic State. YPG fighters were linking together the Kurdish population centres south of the Syrian-Turkish frontier to create a de facto Kurdish state – they called it Rojava. I met a squad of YPG fighters mopping up after a battle with IS for control of a range of forested hills called Mount Abdulaziz, west of the Kurdish-Arab city of Hasaka. Signs of the recent IS presence included the burned-out remains of cars that had been used as bombs and some fresh pro-IS graffiti on the walls of a captured building. Lying in the debris inside were neatly printed IS ration cards with the names, ID numbers and personal details of recipients: evidence that IS, monstrous militarised cult though it was, was also a well-organised administrative machine. Foreign IS fighters had evidently been stationed in the building: in a discarded notebook were Arabic words translated into various languages as well as drawings of household items – a desk, a chair – along with their names in Arabic. The YPG soldiers, who all looked very young, were cheerful after their success. Botan Damhat, the squad leader, who was only 18, said the swift victory had come about through the combination of YPG ground troops and US airstrikes. ‘Without the American planes it would have been much harder to take the mountain,’ he said. ‘We would have won in the end, but we would have lost a lot more men.’ Continue reading “Survivors of the Syrian Wars”

International campaign in defense of Afrin/Global call for action

 Stop Turkey’s war against the Kurdish People in Afrin!

Defend Afrin!

Supporting the resistance is an historical imperative!

Join us for the first Global Action Day for Afrin on 24 March 2018!

The criminal assault on Afrin constitutes a new phase in the Turkish state’s war on the Kurdish people. This invasion and genocidal attack has been carried out in front of the eyes of humanity. This assault would not be possible without the complicity of the major powers. The heroic resistance of the Kurds in the struggle for Kobane triggered the breakdown of the peace process and a spill-over of the war in Syria into the Kurdish region of Turkey. The past two years have witnessed human rights atrocities in the Kurdish region of Turkey, with thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands displaced. Continue reading “International campaign in defense of Afrin/Global call for action”

Kurdistan National Congress (KNK), Statement 19 March 2018 END THE INVASION AND ETHNIC CLEANSING IN AFRIN BY THE TURKISH STATE

The Turkish state is now intensifying the massacres to which it is subjecting civilians in Afrin. The Turkish State has sped up the ethnic cleansing in Kurdish city of Afrin by exploiting the opportunity that has arisen from the withdrawal of SDF, YPJ and YPG, who had intended to prevent harm to the civilians and even bigger massacres.
The real aim of the Turkish State is to eliminate the Kurdish people altogether and to prevent any political status for them. It is obvious from their practice in the invasion of Afrin that the Turkish State will continue its policy of ethnic cleansing with all the jihadist murderous gangs with which it is in alliance.
The state terror being perpetrated by the Turkish State and the barbarism of the jihadist with whom it is aligned is taking place before the eyes of the whole world. All international forces and primarily the USA, Russia, the EU and the UN are responsible for this invasion and the ethnic cleansing. Continue reading “Kurdistan National Congress (KNK), Statement 19 March 2018 END THE INVASION AND ETHNIC CLEANSING IN AFRIN BY THE TURKISH STATE”