HONORING A STATE SPONSOR OF TERROR AND MURDERING KURDISH WOMEN

"When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy it implies, then the "division" of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form."
~ Simone de Beauvoir.

Goran at Zanetî has an excellent report on Memphis and it's decision to honor the repressive Turkish regime during its annual international festival in the month of May:

The decision by the Memphis in May organizers to honor Turkey especially at such an unusual time might be astonishing to anyone who has the slightest clue about what has been going on in Turkey. Advocates of human rights might even go as far as to describe such an “honoring” as not only sad, but also abhorrent. Turkey has a long history of gross human rights violations but 2007 and 2008 have carried some of the worst in most recent years.

[ . . . ]

Just this year, as it has frequently made its way across the news ticker (making it hard to believe the Memphis in May organizers could have missed it), the Turkish military has been bombing the Iraqi Kurdistan region. Pointing to rebel bases high in mountains that create a natural border for Turkey and Iraq, the Turkish military has begun campaign of aggression against the region. Although Turkey claims to only target rebels, video and local reporting has shown that Kurdish civilians have been frequent targets, and in many cases, the only targets. Since December, the Turkish military has bombed many villages, bridges and other infrastructure, killed countless civilians, and has even launched ground invasions leading to more civilian casualties despite no recent provocations by rebels. Furthermore, the Turkish government has so far rejected all peaceful attempts negotiated by rebels through the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq even when American military officials suggested it as the only solution Turkey should be seeking.

Goran also names the congressman from Memphis, Steve Cohen, as the arrogant genocide-denier that he is. As for me, I'll add him to the list of Deep Staters in America.

Gordon Taylor has also posted his first Kurdish post at his new digs, The Pasha and the Gypsy, and he focuses on "compulsory self-administered honor killings" in North Kurdistan:

. . . The Turkish government, in response to demands from the European Union, has considerably stiffened the penalties. (Note that only demands from the EU got them to do it.) Life in prison is now the mandatory sentence. But this hasn't stopped the honor killings. Now the girls are required to kill themselves.

Think of it: "You have dishonored us. Only you can cleanse this stain from our family. Kill yourself." Now try getting it as a text message on your cell phone. That's the opening of a 17 July 2006 story from the New York Times. The girl in the story, Derya, got as many as 15 of these text messages a day from her uncles and brothers. In the end she got lucky and found a women's organization in Batman, her home town (pop. 250,000), that took in girls like her. But that only happened after she had tried without success to drown herself in the Tigris River and hang herself with a rope. (An uncle cut her down after the last attempt: presumably not the same uncle who initially texted her and told her to off herself.)

He also mentions the rise in male Kurd suicides in the TSK. Of course we know that the terrorist TSK has a long-standing tradition of making Kurdish deaths in the military look like suicides. Gordon also writes about the Kurdish mother who refused to call her son a "martyr" after his death in the mountains near Bingöl. Her point about Erdoğan's sons studying in the US should be augmented with the information that at least one of them avoided military service altogether by doctoring up medical records in secret. After all, military service is not a place where you take it easy, eh, Tayyip?

As regards honor murders, whether "self-administered" or not, things are not much better in South Kurdistan, as reported in the UK's Independent, via AlterNet:

. . . [R]ecent calls by the Kurdish MP Narmin Osman to outlaw honour killings have been blocked by fundamentalists. "Honor killings are not actually a crime in the eyes of the government," said Houzan Mahmoud, who has had a fatwa on her head since raising a petition against the introduction of sharia law in Kurdistan. "If before there was one dictator persecuting people, now almost everyone is persecuting women.

[ . . . ]

The stoning death of Ms. [Du'a Khalil] Aswad led to the establishment of an Internal Ministry unit in Kurdistan to combat violence against women. It reported that last year in Sulaymaniyah, a city of 1 million people, there were 407 reported offences, beheadings, beatings, deaths through "family problems", and threats of honor killings. Rape is not included as most women are too fearful to report it for fear of retribution.

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful!

KurdishPress has something on the terrorist TSK's recent lies about its bombing of South Kurdistan, but don't you believe it. Remember what Münir Paşa said. While we're on the subject of the terrorist TSK, consider the irony of the MGK (read: TSK) giving permission for a "closer dialogue" with the KRG while the TSK continues to bomb South Kurdistan.