Hakkari province is under military rule since the government declared it a “special rule” area. Military tanks have been deployed to residential areas and over 300 Kurdish citizens homes have been destroyed by their own army, some with tank artillery fire and shelling. The latest atrocity reported from Kurdish Silopi town is the 250 civilians […]
Hakkari province is under military rule since the government declared it a “special rule” area.
Military tanks have been deployed to residential areas and over 300 Kurdish citizens homes have been destroyed by their own army, some with tank artillery fire and shelling.
The latest atrocity reported from Kurdish Silopi town is the 250 civilians taking shelter in a residential apartment’s basement. The residents took refuge in the basement against the Turkish army shelling; however the Turkish police and military have surrounded the building with armored vehicles and will not allow the people to leave while shelling the building. The residents have been under siege in the basement for three full days.
Dicle News Agency report,s Abdurrezak Yigit, one of the stranded citizens, reported from the shelter that they were being bombed continuously by the Turkish army. “If nobody intervenes, they are getting ready for a massacre,” Abdurrezzak said. He also added, “The women and children are having psychological breakdowns under the bombardment, We need immediate help.”
Having being left only with digging trenches to protect their neighborhoods and families from the Turkish police assaults, people are trying any means to keep the military and the police out of their streets.
Observing the ways Turkish forces attack the civilians, people have developed self-defense and resistance tactics. Usually the Turkish government forces first declare a curfew. Confining people inside their homes, at night the police attack and blow up the power transformers. The water, telephone and internet access are cut to extract most pain and to prevent communication. The artillery fire pounds the homes to terrorize the residents and when the artillery stops, the forces start raiding homes, breaking down doors and assaulting the people. Turkish sharp shooters are placed on roofs and are ordered to shoot any person they may see, even the people who are in their own back yards. During this time, the Turkish police deface the neighborhood walls with graffiti writing racist, sexist slogans to intimidate the residents. The favorite slogan of the Turkish government forces write on the Kurdish walls is, “If you are a Turk you must rule, if you are a Kurd, you must obey!”
The most effective defense of Kurdish neighborhoods has proven to be the trenches people dig in their streets preventing the military armored vehicles from entering. Police usually spray homes from empty streets with machine gun after the curfew if they are able to enter the streets. Turkish Erdogan government, frustrated with the effectiveness of the trenches is trying to propagandize against the trenches, trying to portray the trenches as the very reason the Turkish government forces were sent to the area.
Only few days ago military forces were flown in huge numbers to the Kurdish towns. 10,000 troops under the rule of 36 colonels and 4 generals arrived at the regional airport and are now stationed at schools emptied by the government. All schools in the region have been closed when the ministry of education ordered all teachers out of the region. Schools abandoned by some teachers are now being used by the military while the Kurdish children are confined to their homes and bombed by the Erdogan government. Many schools have been destroyed with bullets and bombs by the Turkish forces.
Observing these methods, people and especially the youth have armed themselves with fire crackers, Molotov cocktails and by digging trenches in the streets.
While the Turkish prime minister Davutoglu promised to “break the trenches on their heads” (sic) the progressives, leftists and the civil rights proponents are on the streets in the rest of the country showing solidarity with the people of Cizre, Silopi, Diyarbakir and the rest of the Kurdish areas. However, Turkish government does not allow any protest against its policies.
In Antalya, yesterday crowds took to the streets to protest the genocide against the Kurds in their country. The protesters expressed that even the curfews imposed by the governors were illegal according to the Kurdish laws because the governors don’t have the authority by law to declare curfews. As the government has done elsewhere, the police attacked the peaceful protesters with tear gas. While the crowd was forcefully dispersed temporarily, a group of 50 protesters reconvened to read a press release. It is illegal, according to the Erdogan regime, to demand peace in the land. Every single protest against the war Erdogan is trying to wage in Iraq or Syria against the Kurds has been attacked brutally by the police. However, as in other places police was not able to prevent the demonstration and the rally.
In Istanbul, demonstrators took to the streets under the banner, “People want peace, Erdogan wants war!” While the police attacked this demonstration as well, the protesters were able to disperse in to the side streets then convene again to continue the protests. The plainclothes police trying to prevent further protests setup a check barrier in the most crowded and popular street, Istiklal, in Istanbul and attacked any news reporter that tried photographing them. The police then suddenly attacked those waiting to march and arrested scores of people. Residents saw the arrested being beaten by the police inside the police vehicles after their arrest. In Tarlabasi, where the demonstrators marched after the police attack clashed with the police for about 1.5 hours.
Sendika.Org News (Mehmet Bayram)