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  Dr. Necat Keskin  15th of May is celebrated as ‘Kurdish Language Day’ among Kurdish people in Turkey (North Kurdistan) since 2006 and also in the ‘North-affiliated’ Rojava. The day refers to the publishing of the Hawar journal in the Latin alphabet by the Kurdish linguist Celadet Bedirkhan in 1932. While that …

  Interview by Federico Venturini low you will find an interview with Debbie Bookchin, daughter of the late Murray Bookchin, who passed away in 2006. Bookchin spent his life in revolutionary leftist circles, joining a communist youth organization at the age of nine and becoming a Trotskyist in his late …

By Nurcan Baysal “Allow us, let us take these people out alive. The state will lose nothing if a civilian group is involved.” Part of Diyarbakir’s old city walls. Wikicommons/ Bertil Videt. Some rights reserved.We are in Surici district with Lale Mansur, Zeynep Tanbay, Ferhat Tunc, Aysegul Devecioglu, Bahri Belen …

  The final declaration of the European Left Parties Solidarity Conference With Kurdish People in Amed has been released. The conference in the main Kurdish city Amed on 20 February was organised by HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party), DTK (Democratic Society Congress), DBP (Party of Democratic Regions) and KJA (Free Women’s …

  by Ergun Babahan This article was originally published in Turkish on Özgür Düşünce with the title ‘Basement of shame’ and was translated to English by Kurdish Question. For many days now, 26 people, covered in blood and in need of water, have been awaiting an ambulance in a basement in the Kurdish …

  By Tony Iltis Turkey is rapidly descending into civil war as the government deepens its offensive against the Kurdish population. Turkey is rapidly descending into civil war as the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan deepens its offensive against the Kurdish population, left-wing opposition parties, journalists and academics. The …

Defne Kadıoğlu Polat While the Turkish government claims that all original residents will be able to return to Sur, it is likely that, similar to what happened in New Orleans, many of those who have fled will not come back. The Turkish military operation against the PKK in Southeast Anatolia …

  By Borja G. Moya* A prefabricated building hosts the school of the Yazidi refugee camp, located 20 kilometers outside Amed, the capital of North Kurdistan (Turkey). On a wall, drawings and words written by girls and boys in Arabic script can be seen: even if Sinjar’s Yazidis speak Kurmanji …

      By Joris Leverink Since August, 52 curfews have been declared by the Turkish state in Kurdish towns and neighborhoods. Despite the repression, the resistance is thriving. The scenes of destruction in the Kurdish towns and neighborhoods placed under curfew by the Turkish authorities do not just resemble a war …

Alarmed by Kurdish territorial gains, Turkey fears that the latest creation of autonomous Tel Abyad canton could stir separatism among its own Kurdish minority. Threatening continued assaults on the Kurdish militia in Syria, the Turkish president has warned he will not request anyone’s permission to do whatever is necessary to …

        Photo: In the Dengbêj House of Diyarbakir (by D. Bettoni) Dimitri Bettoni The Dengbêj represent the collective memory of the Kurdish people, having resisted the Turkish government attempts to assimilate them. A tradition that goes back many centuries, words that reverberate against the mountain walls and …

        In Cizre district of Şırnak, which was sort of devastated by Turkish state forces during the nine-day curfew between 4-12 September, which left 21 civilians dead, people haven’t given up on the idea of self-rule, the declaration of which was responded by the state with brutal …

          Photo: PYD Congress Day by day, Turkey’s onslaught against the Kurds is intensifying. Just last month, Ankara launched over 500 air strikes against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), while targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) only 3 times. By now, even senior U.S. …

        The Iraqi Kurdistan dilemma: President Barzani’s term has ended, “Islamic State” jihadists are at the region’s doorstep; Turkey and the PKK are at war. Simple solutions are not in sight. If the number of migrants in the Autonomous Region Kurdistan in northern Iraq is any measure, …

        On his visit late last month to Sanandaj, the capital of Iran’s Kurdistan province, President Hassan Rouhani made an important announcement. For the first time, Kurdish language studies will officially be offered to university students. With the opening of a Kurdish Language and Literature program at the University of Kurdistan, Article …

    Diyarbakir’s Kurdish community has a long tradition of resistance. Many in the younger generation grew up with images of dead relatives – martyrs from the PKK-Turkey war of the nineties.   By Dominique Soguel DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY — In her flowing dress, leather sandals, and sunglasses, Ozgur Yesha, whose name …

Bookchin’s municipalist ideas, once rejected by communists and anarchists alike, have now come to inspire the Kurdish quest for democratic autonomy   Boris Leverink The introduction to the new book The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct Democracy (Verso, 2015), explains how Murray Bookchin – born to Russian Jewish immigrants …

      By Joris Leverink On August 1, 2015   For years, the Turkish central government, led by the former prime minister and current president Erdogan, has claimed that there is no such thing as a “Kurdish problem”, denying the fact that the country’s Kurdish population has been discriminated against on the …

        In Diyarbakır, southeastern Turkey, there are at least 20,000 refugees, including many Yazidis, who dream of reaching Europe.  Dimitri Bettoni | Diyarbakır 24 July 2015 Refugees’ camp – Anna Pazos In Diyarbakır, euphoria for the electoral results [of the parliamentary elections of June 7th, ed.] is …

      Photo: Kurds demonstrate in Strasbourg calling for Ocalan’s release, February 2015. Demotix/ Jonathan Rae. All rights reserved. Past experience suggests that this unclarity about the peace process may once again open the door for brutal conflict. Turkey and the Kurds share the aim of ending their long-standing …

  The 21-year-old is one of dozens of members of the autonomous Kurdish region’s peshmerga forces studying at a school in the northern Iraqi village of Bahra, some three kilometres (two miles) from the closest Islamic State (IS) group position. A sign on a house in the village reads “Peshmerga School”, …