#ezidis

shengal, 2015 by joey l.

berivan, a volunteer fighter of ezîdxan women’s nits (YJÊ), the female wing of the YBS, with disheveled islamic state flag

cudi serhed, commander of frontline operations in shengal for people’s defense forces (HPG), 29 the armed wing of the PKK

kurtay serhed observes a bazaar damaged from ISIS suicide car bomb attacks

silava and berivan share a laugh in an abandoned ISIS base

Over the weekend, Genocide Watch released the following Genocide Warning for Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. A Genocide Warning is called when a genocidal process is under way, often indicated by genocidal massacres, with the imminent danger of root and branch destruction.

Kurds are at risk for large-scale genocide by the regional powers of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria, all of which have sizable Kurdish minority populations. Currently the largest threat comes from Turkey. On January 20, 2018 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan launched cross-border military operations into northwestern Syria with the code name “Operation Olive Branch,” The mission aimed to oust Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (or YPG) from the district of Afrin. Turkey considers the YPG to be an extension of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency within Turkey on and off since 1984 in the name of greater rights and regional autonomy. The YPG denies being an extension of the PKK and has been allied with the United States (among other countries) in the fight against the Islamic State/Da'esh since 2014.

The Turkish Armed Forces have conducted Operation Olive Branch with little apparent concern for the laws of war, dropping bombs and shelling towns indiscriminately. Hundreds of civilians around Afrin, including religious minorities displaced by the Syrian War and by Da'esh, have been killed. There is evidence that suggests that Turkish forces may have intentionally targeted civilians.

The Turkish government and media have characterized the YPG as a “terrorist organization,” casting its invasion of Syria as an anti-terror operation. It has also referred to its aggression against its southern neighbor as “jihad,” echoing language used by ISIS and other extremist groups. The term “terrorist” is used in Turkey as a catch-all phrase to dehumanize opponents and legitimize the suppression of human rights and freedoms. Since the attempted coup of 2015, the Turkish government has dismissed thousands of civil servants and jailed hundreds of teachers, professors, journalists, politicians, human rights workers and other cultural leaders for being suspected supporters of “the opposition.” Many of these detainees have been charged with terrorism. The term “terrorist” has also been used to justify military-style violence against the Kurdish minority populations in the country’s South East, where the PKK presence is strong. The Afrin operation is not unlike “anti-terror” operations conducted in South East Turkey since 2015, where, in towns like Cizre, Turkish security forces have displaced much of the population, imposed harsh curfews (sometime lasting twenty-four hours a day for weeks and even months), cut off water and electricity supplies, killed dozens of civilians, destroyed cultural institutions (including mosques), desecrated cemeteries, and laid waste to homes by defecating on furniture and bedding, destroying cooking implements, and killing domestic and farm animals. Soldiers have also written racist slogans on buildings and have hung the Turkish flag from windows. In Cizre – as in Afrin – the bodies of killed female fighters have been mutilated, videotaped, and shared widely on social media. These life force atrocities are strongly suggestive of genocidal intent.