Peace in Kurdistan Campaign Statement: The Kurdish experiment in democratic autonomy in Syria is now under grave danger from the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front and other Islamist factions who are waging an increasingly ruthless campaign of violence and mass killing. This onslaught is threatening to demoralise civilians in the Kurdish-controlled region that has remained…
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Yearly Archives: 2013
Silence and recklessness of war creators in the Syrian civil war
By Solin Hacador: Dictators may belong to the 20th century, but Assad’s fight to retain power evokes earlier times: the parading soldiers flourish children’s body by ballistic missiles and on their bayonets; the mass public executions, including of Kurds, carried out in residential areas. No matter their ethnicity, as they are all human. War itself…
Kurds of Syria and the political paradox of Western democracies
By Dr Amir Sharifi: In the Western mainstream press and media, we have rarely come across reports of the unfolding religious violence against Kurds in Northern Syria (in Kurdish Rojava, Western Kurdistan in Kurdish) over the past weeks. It is now a known fact that al-Qaeda affiliated armed bands have opened a new front to…
A Journey with Sherko Bekas
By Mahmood Shawkat Jaff: An email informed me that AUIS will welcome distinguished Sulaimani poet, Sherko Bekas, to his first-ever poetry reading at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. That was fine news and perhaps it was the most interesting email that I had received since the beginning of that semester. On Saturday evening, November…
Kurdish National Conference* and some suggestions
By Saman Salih Faraj: Translated by Aras Ahmed Mhamad This generation of Kurdish people is witnessing probably the greatest national event in the old and new history of their struggle, which is holding the first Kurdish National Conference in South Kurdistan. Kurds and their representatives from all parts of Kurdistan and in some other places…
US should not give in to Al Qaeda terror in the Middle East
By Mufid Abdulla: One of the biggest stories of recent days is the closure of American embassies across the Middle East due to the threat of major attack from Al Qaeda. The CIA has for a long time underestimated the ferocity of the Jihadis in Iraq and their links to terrorist networks all over the…
KDP and PUK deliberately delay the elections
By Mufid Abdulla: In any country the parliament is the house of privilege, but in Kurdistan we have 110 MPs who cannot decide when the election days will be. And we have the case of the council elections that have not being held for the last twelve years. This amounts to a fraudulent attempt…
On Poetry: Sherko Bekas
Interview and translation by Aras Ahmed Mhamad: Sherko Bekas, the acclaimed modern Kurdish poet, died yesterday (4 August) of cancer. Son of the poet Fayak Bekas, Sherko was born in Sulaymani in 1940. He joined the liberation movement in 1965, working for the Voice of Kurdistan radio station until he was forced into exile in…
Kurdish poetry by Saladin’s brother
Introduced by Yasin Aziz: These two short poems were written in Arabic by Buri Taj al Din Ayyubi (1161 – 1183 AD) who was the youngest brother of Saladin Ayubi and a well-known poet. They were published in the next century by Ibn Khallikan in his ‘The Obituaries of Eminent Men’ – also known as…
Elections and political culture in the Kurdistan Region
By Jalal Hasan: Translated by Aras Ahmed Mhamad The question that is always asked before elections is: which political party will win the majority of the votes and which will lose some of their votes and popularity? This question has also been asked in Kurdistan’s elections. Kurdish political parties and their leaders try to persuade…
The Genocide Calendar
By Beyan Farshi: It’s happened a lot, and in between many reminder notes have been overseen or lost through the centuries. Browsing through the lost reminder notes might reveal the unspoken truth, but the thing that most of us are aware of is the conspiracy of those silent suspicious souls who intended, and still do,…
Peace process?
By Issa Chomani: The Turkish government has been holding negotiations with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan under the settlement process since late 2012, claiming it intends to find a peaceful and political solution to the decades-long Kurdish dispute and the armed conflict between the Turkish military and PKK. The clashes between the…
On Translation: Interview with Azad Berzinji
Interview by Aras Ahmed: Azad Berzinji writes and translates in English, Farsi, Arabic and Kurdish. To date he has translated more than 35 books. AA: How would you define translation? What’s the importance of translation in this commercial and technological world? AB: Translation in its general meaning is the process of changing a text from…
July a bloodbath month in Iraq
KT Comment: Figures released by the Iraqi ministry of health and interior ministry show that the terror campaign of Al Qaeda and others caused the deaths of more than 1,000 people last month. At least 778 ordinary civilians died in explosions and other violence. In addition, 88 police officers, 55 soldiers and 68 terrorists died….
There are lies, damned lies and ‘Google lies’
By Osamah Golpy: For as long as I have known, a professional liar does not lie until he has got a bigger lie to cover the previous lie in the first place! And so they are never short of new pieces of the same lie. It is a never ending story, lies on top of…
