HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) deputy for Şırnak, Faysal Sarıyıldız, has written a letter addressing parliamentarians of the European Union member states and other countries regarding the AKP government’s genocidal policies in North Kurdistan [eastern Turkey]. Sarıyıldız has called for solidarity with the Kurdish people against the attacks of state forces targeting civilians. Here below is the translation by ANF English service of the letter written by the HDP MP originally in Turkish:
CİZRE – I am writing to you from a territory where all manner of atrocities of war are being executed. Violence, arms and deaths have long exhausted words. Bombs fired by tanks are falling right near us.
This territory–where people have been committed to basements for months, basic rights and freedoms are put aside, a de facto state of siege is executed, houses are demolished by tank strikes, people are shot dead out in the street and deliberately targeted by snipers, and dead bodies remain on streets for days–is called Kurdistan.
‘213 civilians murdered by the state in the last six months’
The process of democratic resolution and negotiation that began between PKK and the Turkish state in 2013 was ended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in April of 2015. After turning down the table of peace and resolution, Erdoğan imposed his decision on the AKP government too, and started a bloody process.
The Kurdish people’s demand to rule themselves in a co-existence with other peoples and within the present boundaries of the Turkish Republic, which will be grounded on peace, equality, democracy and freedom, is being suppressed by the force and violence of the Turkish Republic State.
Through the declarations of self-governance, Kurdish people have revealed their demand for status to be guaranteed by a democratic and libertarian constitution. The state has responded to this demand of the Kurdish people with tanks and artillery attacks. It goes without doubt that civilian population is paying the greatest price of these attacks conducted by the Turkish state. 213 civilians have been murdered by state forces in the last six months alone.
Upon the declaration of self-rule by the Kurdish people in Kurdish cities, a total of 54 curfews have been imposed in 18 towns of 7 cities, which involved dozens of neighborhoods and lasted 231 days in total. During these curfews 124 people have been murdered by state forces.
‘As I write this letter…’
As I write this letter to you, a mortar shell that hit a house in Cizre has caused the death of a 3-month-old baby. Her grandparents were also shot and wounded by security forces as they tried to rush her to hospital. The grandfather died at hospital today.
The Kurdish people who are waging an all-out struggle against the ISIS fascism and reactionism in the Middle East are facing massacres by the AKP government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in response to their peaceful demands.
The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), of which I am a member, believes a resolution to the Kurdish question can be achieved not through deaths and massacres but politics, negotiation, respect for the right to self-rule and use of mother tongue, peace, justice and equality.
The policies of violence, denial and assimilation that AKP government persistently sustains are extending the social cost of the Kurdish question and destroying the Kurdish people’s desire for peace.
‘EU should show solidarity and not remain unresponsive’
The AKP government which claims to have re-initiated an EU membership process is making an effort to cover up its war against the Kurdish territory, under the mask of EU reforms. However, there exists no reformist approach befitting the norms of the European Union.
During these days when the right to life of the Kurdish people living in Turkey remains under threat and an effort is made to atrociously suppress their demands for self-rule and mother-tongue education, we are concerned over the transformation of this war into a civil war to result in a genocide.
I present my respects in the belief that the European Union will therefore be solidarity with the Kurdish people and not remain unresponsive to all the happenings…
Read also:
Şırnak people: We all would have died but for the trenches, ANF News, Dec 25, 2015
