The families of political prisoners, especially those in poor health, are worried for the safety of their jailed loved ones after Justice Minister Abdülhamit Gül said on Friday all family visits would be suspended for the next two weeks in an effort to contain coronavirus infections. The ministry also said the temperature of everybody who […]
A ruling by Belgium’s highest court last week can have far-reaching consequences that can end the practice of enlisting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an armed group which has been fighting inside Turkey since 1984, as a terrorist organisation in Europe. The court approved a previous decision made by a lower court in March, which […]
On Dec. 28, 2011, late at night, the Turkish warplanes bombed a group of Kurdish villagers, who had gone across the border into Iraq to load packages with cigarettes and tea and barrels with petrol on their mules. They were about to enter the Turkish territory again when the bombing started. Not much later, 34 […]
When you grow up with dengbej, as is the case with all Kurds who were born and raised on their ancestral lands, it will be part of you for the rest of your life. For Kurdish singers, that is even more the case. Acclaimed Kurdish singers Şivan Perwer and Mem Ararat talked to Ahval about […]
International actors were both a benefit and a detriment to the Kurdish struggle for representation, Wladimir van Wilgenburg and Harriet Allsopp write in their book “The Kurds of Northern Syria, Governance, Diversity and Conflicts’’. The authors sketch the picture of how Turkey was a detriment to Kurdish representation and why the Turkish army invaded Syria […]
Legally speaking, Selahattin Demirtaş should have been freed from prison three times already. Also legally speaking, he shouldn’t have been jailed in the first place. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said so and a Turkish court said so. Despite that, the former co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) is not a […]
Late last month, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported that a Turkish airstrike had seriously wounded veteran Kurdish fighter Rıza Altun. Altun is a member of the executive council of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organisation that includes the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been fighting an armed insurgency for Kurdish self-rule in Turkey since 1984 […]
On January 26, Kurdish locals in northern Iraq’s Dohuk province began to peacefully protest the presence of a Turkish military base in the village of Sirye. Over the previous year, Ankara had killed dozens of locals in regularly bombings on the nearby mountain headquarters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has fought an […]
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to attack the predominantly Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia in Syria, but he also wants his Justice and Development Party (AKP) to perform well in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast in March 31 local elections. The latter goal would not be enhanced if Leyla Güven, a member of parliament […]
Iraqi Kurdish authorities hope a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Iraqi President Barham Salih this month will lead to Turkey lifting a more than one-year ban on international flights crossing its airspace to land at Sulaymaniyah, in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region. Turkey imposed the ban on flights to Sulaymaniyah in the southeast […]