Ever since the foundation of modern Turkey in 1923, the country’s Kurdish population has endured severe discrimination and national oppression.
The nationalist officers around Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the victor of Gallipoli who led the struggle to establish Turkey's republic, were ruthless Turkish chauvinists. They saw the large Kurdish minority as a “problem” to be dealt with.
Kurdistan
The article below was is taken from a longer message released by Malalai Joya, the renowned Afghan feminist who has resisted the Taliban and US-led occupation of her nation, on October 12. It is abridged from www.malalaijoya.com.
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The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine released this statement on October 13.
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The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine expresses its solidarity with the Kurdish resistance in Kobane struggling to defend themselves and their community from the reactionary armed group, ISIS, whose entry into our region has been facilitated and supported by imperialist powers and their lackeys.
“Things are looking positive and the wind is with us,” Major General Craig Orme, commander of Australian forces in the latest war in the Middle East, told AAP on October 11.
If the US-led military coalition has a strategy against its latest enemy, the terrorist gang that calls itself the “Islamic State” (IS), Orme was not revealing it.
“If they want to stay in one spot, we are very happy for them to do that,” he said. “We will just bomb them. When they do mass we will smack them and smack them hard.”
Kobane’s epic resistance against the assault of the genocidal Islamic State (IS) gangs had entered its fourth week by October 10.
The defence had held out against overwhelming odds. The defenders had been forced back, but their lines had not been broken. In some neighbourhoods, street fighting was taking place.
A desperate battle by progressive Kurdish-led resistance fighters is seeking to defend Kobanê from ISIS fundamentalist forces. Kobanê is in Rojava, or Western Kurdistan, is a predominantly Kurdish area in northern Syria that is a semi-autonomous “liberated zone” experiencing a social revolution.
Below is the first part of a statement initially released by Socialist Alliance in Australia on September 24 and updated on October 4. In Sydney, on Friday morning (October 10), members of the community will a protest fast in Sydney Town Hall Square from 9am.
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Sydney solidarity with Kurdish struggle (PHOTO STORY)
Snap protest was held on September 29 and October 7 in Sydney by members of the progressive Kurdish community. It was called in response to news that ISIS killers had entered the besieged town of Kobane, which is part of the Rojava Kurdish liberated zone in northern Syria. On Friday morning (October 10) members of the community will a protest fast in Sydney Town Hall Square from 9am.
A flyer by the Kurdish Association distributed by the Kurdish protesters/hunger strikers in Sydney says:
The statement below was released by the foreign affairs committe of the Turkish left-wing People's Democratic Party (HDP) on October 3. The HDP is a strong support of Kurdish rights. HDP presidential candidate, Kurdish activist Selahattin Demirtas, won almost 10% o0f the vote in Turkey's presidential elections in August. The statement is reprinted from HDPEnglish.wordpress.com and has been edited for clarity.
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Besieged since September 15, the northern Syrian Kurdish-majority city of Kobane (whose Arabic name is Ayn al-Arab) has mounted a heroic, all-out resistance to the murderous Islamic State gangs.
As of September 25, despite the superior heavy weaponry deployed by the IS, it appears that fierce resistance and determined counter-attacks have halted or slowed the assault. Nonetheless, the IS has pushed closer to the city centre than ever before and the situation remains perilous.
With the US and allied nations, including Arab countries, carrying out air strikes in Syria, the Turkish government is trying to convince the West it does not support the Islamic State (IS) forces the US is targetting.
Newly elected President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (the former prime minster) linked the adjective “terrorist” with “IS” for the very first time on September 23 during a US TV interview while attending the United Nations climate summit.
“Turkey will do whatever needs to be done to stop this terrorist organisation, militarily, and politically,” he said.
Kurds search for unity amid fight to defeat Islamic State
Across northern Syria and Iraq, Kurdish forces are locked in fierce battles with the murderous Islamic State (IS) armed force, writes Dave Holmes. Whether directly or indirectly, the whole Kurdish people is being drawn into this struggle.
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The Kurdish people are facing an unprecedented challenge. Across a vast swathe of northern Syria and Iraq, the region’s Kurds are locked in a desperate and heroic struggle with the genocidal forces of the so-called Islamic State (IS).
Fighting is raging across a huge front hundreds of kilometres wide, from Aleppo and Kobane in Syria to Mosul and Kirkuk in Iraq — and all points in between.
Salih Muslim is co-president of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a Syria-based Kurdish party fighting for self-determination. The PYD is a sister party of the left-wing Turkish-based Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The party is the ruling force in the Kurdish areas of Syria and took over three enclaves with Kurdish majorities in 2012.
During the early days of the Gezi protests, researchers from the University of Istanbul surveyed 3000 activists in the heart of the struggle around Taksim Square.
Seventy-one percent of respondents described themselves as “pro-freedom” with no affiliation to any organisation, most of them first-time activists. Only 7.1 % said they were a member or supporter of any group.
Barricades on the streets are nothing new to Turkish people. Barricades have been put up against the authorities many times.
The statement was released the Kurdish Association of Australia on January 11 condemning the assassination of three Kurdish activists in Paris. The Kurdish people have long struggled for self-determination in Turkey, and other states that claim parts of historic Kurdistan. Turkey has responded to the Kurdish struggle with brutal repression and moves to wipe out the Kurdish identity.
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On the 9th of January, 2013 three Kurdish women activists ― including a co-founder of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) ― were shot dead in the Kurdish Institute of Paris.
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