Category Archives: YPJ

The Battle For Afrin Has Just Started

By Arian Mufid: The Turkish state media triumphally announced yesterday that the centre of Afrin, the Kurdish city in Rojava in the north of Syria, was under the control of its proxy militias. The Turkish military junta, after two months of incurring heavy casualties, have managed to enter the city of Afrin. However, the leaders…

Turkish Military Junta Should Admit Defeat In Afrin

By Arian Mufid: It is four weeks since the start of the notorious military offensive on Afrin by the second-biggest Nato force in the world, Turkey. The Turkish military apparatus designed their operation ‘Olive Branch’ to last for a few days, not a few weeks, to take control of Afrin but their progress has been…

‘Syria Won’t Return to Dictatorship Post War’ – Salih Muslim

Mr Salih Muslim is co-president of the Democratic Union Party or PYD. The PYD is one of the most dominant players in Syria; currently this is mostly because of its control over that most effective and formidable Kurdish militia YPG/YPJ, significant popular support, and its effective organization. In an exclusive interview with Manish Rai, Editor,…

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women — Stop the IS-AKP Genocide and Feminicide in Kurdistan!

By the Women’s Commission of the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK): On November 25, 2015, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, the Women’s Commission of the Kurdistan National Congress calls on the international community— particularly the United Nations, the European Union, and the National Governments—to stop the IS genocide and feminicide in Kurdistan….

US Volunteer ‘Died Fighting For Humanity’ Says Kobani PM, As YPG ‘Enters’ Girê Spî

By John Hunt: Hundreds of Kurds gathered in the ravaged centre of Kobani last Thursday to honour US citizen Keith Broomfield who died on 3rd June while fighting in the ongoing war between the YPG forces of Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) and Daesh (ISIS). Women, men and children stood around his coffin or above it on…

The Hague Declaration: Joint Diplomatic Committee of Kurdistan Political Groups

By Joint Diplomatic Committee of Kurdistan Political Groups: Freedom-loving Kurdish nation, Political forces, Families and relatives of the martyrs of Kurdistan, In this crucial phase of our history in which the entire region of the Middle East and gulf states are suffering civil, ethnic, religious and regional war, with the big threat against the struggle of…

This Newroz is Different

By Ramyar Hassani: On Saturday, the Kurdish new year will be celebrated all over Kurdistan. People will welcome the spring and the resurrection of the planet that wakes up from a deep winter sleep. Photos of its signs are already posted all over the social media. Although in exile, I can imagine that trees have got…

The Rojava Revolution

By Evangelos Aretaios: This article was first published by Open Democracy News of the fight of the Syrian Kurds has reached many homes in Europe and the US over the last year as TV channels around the world have covered the resistance of the Kurds against Daesh (self-proclaimed “Islamic State”) in Kobane. The fighting was…

Picket Outside Holloway Prison for Shilan Ozcelik, Imprisoned for Allegedly Wanting to Join Fight Against ISIS, 13th March 2015, 6PM!

KNK Press Release: The Kurdish community and supporters of the Kurdish struggle are incensed at the arrest and imprisonment of 18 year old Shilan (Silhan) Ozcelik, who is accused of wanting to join the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS). The UK government in its steadfastness…

ISIS (with Turkey’s help) MUST free ALL Kurdish hostages or face Peshmerga in Mosul+ and likely PKK in Ankara

By Steve Tataii: Kurdish people have run out of patience, when none of the captive Yezidis numbering in 10,000 Kurdish hostages taken from Sinjar (Shengal) held captive in Mosul, Talafar, Raqqa, and other locations, nor some 50 Pehsmerga, of which 17 or more recently shown in cages in Hawija, have been freed as apparent so…

Fighting and Mourning for Kurdistan

By Dr Jan Best de Vries: Three years ago I wanted to travel to Aleppo and help there the wounded Kurdish, female and male freedom fighters in the northern district Sheik Maksud. Fate decided otherwise and now I’m teaching, with intervals of half a year, Kurdish history and archaeology at the Mesopotamia Academy in Qamishlo…

Powerful, yet are they Useless?

Evin Cheikosman

By Evin Cheikosman: The revolutions throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have opened many doors that have been locked for centuries; and one of those doors leads into the topic of women’s rights.  If we take a moment to reflect on the uprisings that have taken place this past year and the numerous…

Women of Non-State Kurds: From Khanzad Sultan to Rojava Female Fighters   

By Vian Faraj: Part 1 The first division of Kurdistan was made between the Safavid Empire and Ottoman Empire, after the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514 and was later formalized in the Zuhab treaty, 1639, according to which Yerevan, the wide area covering the Iranian part of Kurdistan, eastern Georgia, Dagestan, and Azerbaijan was taken…

The future of Rojava

 Dr. Jan Best de Vries: Sunday afternoon 30 November, Salih Muslim, the male co-president of the PYD (the largest party in Rojava), who normally lives in Kobane, flew in from Stockholm to attend at The Hague a Kurdish feast in celebration of the anniversary of the foundation of the PKK, which is regarded by the government…

Kobani Guerrillas, a New Era of Feminism

By Vian Faraj: After numerous defensive activities by the YPJ (Womens Protection Units) in Kobani, evidently equality concepts are going to be reborn from under the sleeveless jackets of guerrillas in a small city-state located at the man-made border between two colonialists, Turkey and Syria. What the egalitarian Kurdish female fighters in Al-Jazira, Al-Hasakah, Afrin,…