Kurds

By Scott Lucas, University College Dublin | – In north-east Syria, the 12-year conflict is far from over. Russian fighter jets buzz US surveillance drones, threatening to bring them down. Iranian-backed militias occasionally fire rockets at US positions. The Assad regime maintains that it will “regain every inch” of Syria, ending Kurdish autonomy in the […]

Democracy

In a post-election Turkey, the country remains divided on political lines

Arzu Geybullayeva

Written byArzu Geybullayeva ( Globalvoices.org) -Showing up at a polling station, as one of the two presidential candidates, in a country-wide election with a pocket full of cash may not occur to leaders of democratic countries, but in Turkey, that is what the newly re-elected President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did on May 28. The incumbent […]

Featured

Turkey’s President Erdogan Says Swedish NATO Application out of Question after Qur’an burning in Stockholm

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Sweden can forget about membership in the 30-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Erdogan is demanding that Sweden cooperate with Turkey in repressing Kurdish activist expatriates in Sweden, all of whom he views as terrorists. He also says he is furious about the […]

Authoritarianism

Iranians In Kurdish Sanandaj Renew Call For Regime Change At Gathering To Mark Protester’s Death

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

By Ardeshir Tayebi – ( RFE/RL ) – Iranians in the western city of Sanandaj have marked the end of a 40-day mourning period for Homan Abdullahi, a protester killed by security forces in ongoing nationwide protests that have rocked the country since the death of Mahsa Amini, with renewed calls for regime change. Videos […]

Authoritarianism

Clampdown Reported In Iranian Kurdistan After Slain Protesters Mourned

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

By Ardeshir Tayebi | – ( RFE/RL) – Demonstrators in the western Iranian city of Javanrud were set on by security forces and have reportedly faced a martial-style clampdown since gathering in a local cemetery on December 31 to mark the end of the 40-day mourning period for seven protesters killed by security forces in […]

Far Right

The Unbearable Whiteness of Being French: Murderer of Kurds ‘William M.’ Treated with kid Gloves

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Last Thursday, one “William M.,” a retired French train conductor, went to the Kurdish Cultural center in the 10th Arondissement of Paris with a gun and shot six people, killing three and wounding three others, all Kurds. Some were in a hairdresser’s shop. So write Nathalie Birchem et Denis Peiron […]

Iran

Iran: Brutal Repression in Kurdistan Capital (HRW)

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – Iranian security forces used excessive and unlawful lethal force against protesters in Kurdistan province’s capital, Sanandaj, in October and November 2022, Human Rights Watch said today. The newly created United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Iran should investigate these grave abuses as part of its broader reporting on Iranian government […]

Iraq

In Iraqi Kurdistan, Yazidi girls box their way to a new future after Daesh terror

Juan Cole

By Roshan De Stone | – ( Middle East Monitor) – After the 2014 Daesh genocide which left them reeling from the effects of mass abduction and rape, Yazidi refugee girls are rebuilding their lives with the help of boxing, art and music classes. Emma Loffhagen and Charline Bou Mansour report from Iraqi Kurdistan In […]

Authoritarianism

‘A Nightmare’: Iran Intensifies Deadly Crackdown In Kurdistan Region As Protests Rage

Golnaz Esfandiari

( RFE/RL ) – Iranian authorities have intensified their deadly crackdown in the country’s western Kurdistan region, which has been the epicenter of the anti-establishment protests that have raged for months. Human rights groups say government forces have killed more than a dozen people in predominately Kurdish cities in the past 24 hours. The bloodshed […]