By Ismael Aziz: Journalists and human rights activists have been remembering Sardasht Osman, who was murdered nine years ago this month. On 5 May, the 23-year-old Kurdish freelance journalist and anti-corruption campaigner was commemorated across the Kurdistan Region and around the world. In Kurdistan’s Erbil region, there was a gathering at Sardasht Osman’s graveside in the village of…
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Category Archives: Kurd news
Imrali – New Film on the Isolation of Ocalan, Narrated by Maxine Peake
A group of human rights activists, among them British actress Maxine Peake and former Icelandic Minister of Justice Ögmundur Jónasson travels to Turkey. They want to visit Imrali Prison. But the prisoners there cannot be visited by anyone… This short film (8 mins) tells the story of the 2019 international Imrali Peace Delegation and places…
KRG’s Failure to Form Government as the Two Parties Fight for Posts
By Ismael Aziz: A couple of years ago Kurdish politics in the south of Kurdistan was awash with nice predictions. However, since then, with an end to the terrorist attacks of ISIS, but also the referendum disaster, political shocks and economic crisis and uncertainty, Kurdish politics today is at its lowest ebb among the…
Women Delegation from Ireland, Britain and Italy Call for Unlawful Prison Policy of Isolation to End
PRESS RELEASE: Diyarbakir, Turkey The health of Hakkari 55 year old MP Leyla Güven, who started a hunger strike on 8 November 2018, has reached a life-threatening stage. Leyla Güven, who is on the 67th day of a hunger strike, has become too weak to meet with her lawyers. Leyla has a brain tumour. She…
2019: Kurds Should Be Confident
By Arian Mufid: Many of us Kurds were not sorry to leave the old year behind. In 2018 the nation awoke to the punishment and sanctions imposed by the Iraqi and Turkish military juntas as a result of the 2017 referendum. Kurdish politicians from the KDP and PUK have stumbled in 2018 and the people of…
Kurdistan Became a Paradise – for the KDP and PUK
By Ismael Aziz: After ISIS attacked the south of Kurdistan in August 2014, 1,700 Peshmergas were killed and 12,000 injured in the ensuing conflict. While the leaders of the two dominant Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) parties, the KDP and PUK, made visits to the battlefields to take selfies and show their presence for the sake…
Tragic Death of Young Kurdish Musician
By Arian Mufid: The Sulaymani police announced yesterday that the young man who won the Rwanga Solo Musician Award just a few days earlier, on 8th December 2018, had committed suicide in his home in the district of Sarchya Sulaymani. Rehad Hama Aziz was 18 years old and in his fifth year at the music…
The Ramifications of Latest KRG Voter Fraud Go Beyond the Election
By Michael Rubin: On September 30, 2018, Iraqi Kurds once again went to the polls to choose a regional parliament. Because citizens and officials lodged more than 1,000 complaints with regard to fraud, the Independent High Elections and Referendum Commission took three weeks to certify the results. Neither the results nor their certification surprised observers….
The Assault on Local Democracy Goes On: 259 Kurdish Mukhtars Suspended From Duty!
HDP Statement: Turkish government’s ongoing assault on local democracy has shifted to another field in the run up to the local elections scheduled for late March 2019. This time the target is “mukhtars” in Kurdish provinces (elected headmen of villages and neighborhoods). After President Erdoğan had pointed at them as the next target by saying,…
Why Are So Many Women Dying Violently in South Kurdistan?
By Gaziza Kadr Darwish: According to the leading Kurdish media outlet Rudaw, regarding the latest women’s issues data in the south of Kurdistan, during the last six months 109 women committed suicide, including 39 who shot or hanged themselves and 62 who set themselves on fire. Hawler city was listed as the main area for…
The Dirty, Dark Side of the Kurdistan Region Parliament Election
By Aras Ahmed Mhamad: Voting to elect a new Kurdistan region parliament will begin at 8am on September 30, 2018 and it will end at 6pm the same day. There are 3,085,461 eligible voters in the four cities of Hewlêr (Erbil), Slêmanî, Duhok, and Halabja distributed among 1260 polling stations, according to The Independent…
Open Letter to UN High Commissioner on Human Rights: Case of Ramin Hussein Panahai
By Dr Amir Sharifi: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Palais Wilson 52 rue des Pâquis CH-1201 Geneva, Switzerland. June 29, 2018 Dear Mr. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein: On behalf of the Kurdish human rights organizations and associations in Southern California, I express my grave concerns, disquietude and distress over…
Stop the Turkish Invasion of South Kurdistan (Iraqi Kurdistan)
Kurdistan National Kongress (KNK) Statement: The Kurds in Iraq and Syria have been engaged in an epic battle against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, an organisation that stands in opposition not only to the Kurds, but also to the region as a whole, in its attempts to create a Salafist system. This…
Solidarity of Kurdish and Armenian Voices on the Armenian Commemorative Events in Los Angeles
By Dr. Amir Sharifi: In the last week of April, Armenian communities in Los Angeles held their annual Armenian commemorative events throughout the city. Members of the Kurdish communities participated in remembrance and protest activities including the Cycle Against Denial, a bike rally through Santa Monica that raised awareness against all genocides. On April 24,…
Has the Iraqi Presidency Become a PUK Slush Fund?
By Michael Rubin: BAGHDAD—Political jockeying is well underway in Baghdad, as Iraqi political leaders seek the magic political formula which will enable formation of the Iraqi government. While a Shi’ite will take the premiership, Iraq’s most powerful post, the jockeying is on for other plum positions. Beyond key ministries—Foreign Affairs, Oil, and Defense, for example—two…
