Analysis: Try As He Might, Erdoğan Can’t Crush the Left
by Eda Seyhan
The Turkish president’s recent re-election for a third term dashed hopes for a new dawn in Turkey, writes Eda Seyhan. But the cracks are showing.
Tag: kurdistan
Report: Labour Bans Three Kurdish Attendees From Conference While Cosying up to Turkey
by Rivkah Brown
Three Kurdish attendees were denied entry to Labour party conference on security grounds. Some have questioned whether it has anything to do with Erdogan's Turkey.
Opinion: Erdogan’s Attempt to Ban Pro-Kurdish Parties Will Only Fuel the Resistance
by Rosa Gilbert
The HDP is facing its most extreme threat to date. But the broad coalition the party has convened isn't going anywhere, writes Rosa Gilbert.
Opinion: David Graeber Was Right to Recognise the Importance of the Kurdish Struggle
by Giran Ozcan
David Graeber was an early and committed supporter of the Kurdish freedom movement. We can remember him the way he remembered the people of Rojava who gave their lives in the fight against Isis, writes Giran Ozcan - by living out our ideas in practice and making a commitment to solidarity that goes beyond words.
British Solidarity With Rojava Must Start at Home, With an End to the Hostile Environment
by Fanny Malinen
European states won't challenge Erdogan's attack on Rojava because of the power Turkey has as the EU's south-eastern border wall. To show solidarity with the Kurdish-led democracy revolution, we need to challenge the hostile environment at home, argues Fanny Malinen.
Interview: Update From Rojava | Interview With Dani Ellis
Dani Ellis is a volunteer and engineer currently based in Rojava. Following up their conversation a few weeks ago, James spoke to Dani about Turkey’s ‘military pause’, the geopolitical games of Turkey, Syria, Russia and the US, resistance and what this spells for the future of Rojava.
Western Governments May Have Abandoned the Kurds but Let’s Not Abandon Hope and Solidarity
by Chris Strafford
Abandoned by the West, Kurdish-led democratic forces in Syria have been left with a choice between ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Turkish state or compromising their independence by reaching an agreement with Damascus. Chris Strafford argues this is not the time for allies in the UK to abandon hope or solidarity.
Explainers: Rise up for Rojava
This week the Turkish armed forces launched an incursion into northern Syria with the intention of crushing the YPG and the autonomous region known as Rojava. In this video Elif Sarican outlines the reasons why we in the UK should care.
Interview: No Friends but the Mountains | Interview With a Rojava Volunteer
James Butler spoke to Dani Ellis, a volunteer and engineer currently based in Rojava, about the situation now, as Turkey conducts shelling ahead of a full invasion. They discuss the nature of the resistance – and what people in the UK can do in solidarity.
Interview: A New Society in the Shell of the Old | James Butler Meets Debbie Bookchin
Debbie Bookchin’s father’s ideas inspired a Kurdish project based on ecology, non hierarchy, women’s liberation and grassroots democracy. At The World Transformed in September James Butler sat down with Debbie to discuss her father’s ideas, the revolution in Rojava they inspired and more. This interview was recorded before recent events in which the US has […]
Erdogan Wants a ‘Buffer Zone’ Along the Syria Border – but It’s Turkish Forces Killing Civilians
by Robin Fleming
Turkish forces have killed 27 civilians in north-eastern Syria in cross-border attacks this year alone, with just one attack going the other way. Yet Turkey is using the narrative that it must protect itself from a “terror corridor” to move its troops into Rojava.
What to Do With International Isis Fighters? Rojava May Have a Solution
by Dani Ellis
Nobody can agree on what to do with international Isis fighters, but the autonomous Rojava administration in north-eastern Syria is calling for an international tribunal to hold them accountable on the soil where their crimes were committed.
A Century After Turkey’s Genocide of Our People, Armenians Are Still Under Threat
by Hagop Artim Kashejian
104 years after the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of 1.5 million people, an Armenian soldier opposing Isis in Syria reflects on the imperative to keep resisting terror and oppression.
4 Reasons to Support Kurdish Hunger Strikers
by Elif Sarican and Iida Käyhkö
Since November 2018, thousands of Kurdish people across the world have joined an indefinite hunger strike to demand an end to the isolation of imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan. Elif Sarican and Iida Käyhkö lay out the reasons for supporting them.
As Isis Falls, a Humanitarian Crisis Is Rapidly Unfolding in North-Eastern Syria
by Dani Ellis in Deir-ez-Zor, Syria
As the media fixates on 'Isis brides', the Syrian Democratic Forces are struggling to keep thousands of people alive in the desert, with little help from international aid groups. Novara Media and the Rojava Information Centre report from the frontline.
Refugees in Indonesia and Iraq Condemn Western Indifference
by Matt Broomfield
Coverage of the 'refugee crisis' tends to focus on the West, particularly on Europe, but none of the seven countries worldwide to host over half a million refugees are in the EU or North America. Instead, most refugees live on the periphery, confined to squalid, brutal detention centres and stripped of even the scant protection afforded to asylum-seekers on European shores.
Live: Flame War = ….War?
Get ready Russia, nice and new and "smart" episode of #TyskySour tonight with Aaron Bastani, Michael Walker and Ash Sarkar.
In Afrin, the UK Has Blood on Its Hands
by Lotte Lewis
In the days following the news of her friend Haukur Hilmarsson's death, Lotte Lewis spoke with many who questioned why someone from western Europe would travel to fight with the YPG. But Afrin–and the 7 year-long Civil War in Syria that has preceded it –has everything to do with the West.