Diyarbakir Archives

By next Turkeys Election almost all Kurd candidate will be in Jail, Hakkari co-mayors detained over ‘self-governance’ claims

August 20, 2015 By administrator

Hakkari co-mayors Dilek Hatipoğlu (Photo: DHA)

The co-mayors of the Hakkari Municipality were detained in an operation on Thursday, one police launched after claims of a declaration of autonomy in the municipality.

The co-mayors — Dilek Hatipoğlu and Nurullah Çiftçi –– were detained early on Thursday.

The co-mayors of the Sur and Silvan districts of the southeastern province of Diyarbakır have also been detained. Sur Co-mayors Seyid Narin and Fatma Şık Barut, Silvan Co-mayors Yüksel Bodakçı and Melikşah Teke, and pro-Kurdish Democratic Regions Party (DBP) official Ali Rıza Çiçek were detained in operations staged in Diyarbakır on Wednesday.

people’s assemblies in the southeastern districts of Silopi, Cizre and Nusaybin, as well as in the province of Şırnak, declared “self-governance” on Aug. 10, following clashes between terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) supporters and police in Silopi that killed four people, including a police officer. The Yüksekova district of the southeastern province of Hakkari and the Varto and Bulanık districts of Muş followed suit soon thereafter.

In a statement on Aug. 12, the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella group that encompasses the PKK, said the assemblies in Silopi, Cizre, Nusaybin and Şırnak have announced that they do not recognize any state institution, have declared autonomy and “exercise their legitimate right to self-defense if [their] self-governance is attacked.”

Source: Zaman

Armenian Church of St. Giragos in Diyarbakir wins Grand Prix at Europa Nostra Awards

June 12, 2015 By administrator

By Siranush Ghazanchyan,

The Armenian Church of St. Giragos in Diyarbakir has won a Grand Prix of the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage/Europa Nostra Awards.

In a ceremony in Oslo, Norway, the winners of the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Awards were celebrated and the winners of the Grand Prix and Public Choice Award were announced for the first time.

The Public Choice Award was chosen by an open online poll and the Grand Prix winners were selected by specialist juries. Grand Prix laureates receive a €10,000 prize.

Seven projects received the Grand Prix for outstanding efforts in the protection of cultural heritage:

Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary
Salt Valley of Añana, Basque Country, Spain
Armenian Church of St. Giragos in Diyarbakir, Turkey

Wonders of Venice: Virtual Online Treasures in St. Mark’s Area, Italy

The Rundling Association, Jameln, Germany
Churches Conservation Trust, London, United Kingdom

Programme for Owners of Rural Buildings in Estonia, Tallinn, Estonia

The European Heritage Awards Ceremony was hosted by Tibor Navracsics, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport and opened by Fabian Stang, Mayor of Oslo.

The Armenian Church of St. Giragos in Diyarbakir may have been of 17th century origin, although some contend that it was completely rebuilt in the 1880s. The building suffered from appalling deterioration late in the 20th century following the decline in the local population of Armenians. The roof collapsed and the structure became derelict.

Its restoration, which has involved a good deal of totally new building, began a few years ago, thanks to the efforts of the St. Giragos Church Foundation, non-governmental groups and concerned individuals.

The European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage, or the Europa Nostra Awards, highlight some Europe’s best achievements in heritage care, and showcase remarkable efforts made in raising awareness about our cultural heritage.

Source: armradio.am

Turkey Author Balakian Reads with Kurdish Poet in Diyarbakir

June 9, 2015 By administrator

Author Peter Balakian reads poetry with Kurdish poet Tawa Nemir in Diyarbakir (Dikranagerd)

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey—On May 27, author Peter Balakian read poetry with Kurdish poet Tawa Nemir in Diyarbakir (Dikranagerd) to a packed audience at the chic vegan Gabo Café in the old city. According to various journalists who covered the event, no joint reading with an Armenian writer had happened in Diyarbakir in modern memory.

Nemir, who translated Balakian’s poems and his presentation into Kurdish for the audience, is the author of a half dozen books of poems and has translated dozens of books of American, British, and Irish poetry and prose into Kurdish, including Whitman, Eliot, Yeats, and Dickinson.

The reading was made possible with the help of poet Lal Lalesh and Osman Kavala, the director of Anadolu Kültür. Balakian was on a family pilgrimage, led by Armen Aroyan, to Armenian sites and cities in eastern Anatolia with his entire family, including his mother, Arax, who at 87 was able to walk the stones of Ani.

“If you would had told me that I would ever come to Diyarbakir a hundred years after my grandmother’s family—the Shekerlemedjians—were mass-murdered, to read with a Kurdish poet to a spirited and warm audience, I’d have told you that you were dreaming,” Balakian said to a journalist at the press conference following the reading.

At the reading, Balakian spoke of his family’s history in Diyarbakir and read a portion of his grandmother’s human rights claim about what happened to her and her family in August 1915 when the Turkish gendarmes surrounded her parish and deported, then massacred, her entire family. He also read some of his poems that deal with re-visitations of lost Anatolian landscapes marred by traumatic history. He closed with his poem “Parable for Vanished Countries” from June-tree.

In the open conversation that followed, he and Nemir discussed the power of literature and the aesthetic imagination to bridge cultures and histories over large chasms of time. “Nemir is doing a great thing by bringing so much poetry of the English language into Kurdish,” Balakian said. “And I hope we can bring some Kurdish poetry into English now.”

On the eve of the election and the hoped-for parliamentary victory for the Kurdish HDP, there was an electric energy in the city. “All of us were touched by the warm reception of the Kurdish people to us as Armenians, and we were delighted and I suppose a bit surprised to see their respect for the old Armenian buildings and churches of the city,” Balakian said at the press conference following his reading. “Who would have believed the sign to Diyarbakir would read ‘welcome’ in Armenian, Asori, Kurdish, and Turkish, and that there would be a memorial to the Armenian Genocide in the city.”

Source: Armenian weekly

Electricity blackout is Erdogan modern tools Blast blamed on electrical fault hits HDP rally in Diyarbakır

June 5, 2015 By administrator

The venue of the rally after explosion. (Photo: Cihan)

An explosion on Friday that appeared to be caused by an electrical fault injured several people at an opposition party rally in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, television footage showed.

The footage showed people being carried out on stretchers as the rally’s organisers announced on loudspeakers that the explosion had been caused by a fault in a power generator and urged people to stay calm.

At least seven people were founded in the explosion, initial reports said.

The incident comes amidst increasing attacks targeting the party. Most recently, unidentified assailants fired on a campaign minibus of the HDP in eastern Turkey on Wednesday, killing the driver, only days ahead of a crucial general election.

Also last month, simultaneous bomb blasts hit offices of the HDP in two southern cities in the provinces of Adana and Mersin, wounding six people only three weeks ahead of the June 7 parliamentary election.

The celebration of Easter in Diyarbakir Surp Giragos

April 5, 2015 By administrator

Armenian Genocide day to be marked for first time in Turkey’s Diyarbakir

March 30, 2015 By administrator

An Armenian Genocide remembrance ceremony will be held for the first time on April 24 in Surp (Holy) Giragos Armenian Church of Diyarbakir, Turkey.

The Church Foundation, the Human Rights Association (Turkey) Diyarbakir Branch, and the Gomidas Institute (London) will be holding mourning events in the church, reported Haberdiyarbekir website of Turkey.

Following the genocide commemorations in the church, Canadian-Armenian pianist Raffi Bedrosian will perform the known works of Armenian musicians.

Diyarbakır: Zuart Sudjian has filed a lawsuit claiming the New Batman Airport had inherited

February 23, 2015 By administrator

By Uygar Gültekin

Diyarbakır Airport lawsuite

Following the land dispute involving the plot on which Diyarbakır Airport today stands, the land plot on which Batman Airport stands has also become the subject of a lawsuit. Zuart Sudjian has filed a case claiming that the State had built an airport on the plot she had inherited. Sudjian’s land in nearby Diyarbakır had also been appropriated by the State, and the Diyarbakır Airport was built on a part of her plot. report Agos

Zuart Sudjian is an Armenian whose family roots go back to Diyarbakır. Sudjian is a member of the Basmacıyan family from Diyarbakır, and she lives in Diyarbakır today. Sudjian found out that the land she had inherited from her family had been appropriated by the State during cadastral work, upon which she launched a legal process and applied to court for the return of her land. According to her application, like in Diyarbakır, an airport had been built on Sudjian’s land in Batman. The Batman 2^nd Court of First Instance accepted her application and opened a lawsuit.

Villagers claim rejected because it belonged to ‘disappeared’ Armenians

The story of the land is also interesting. According to the case file, after the family left Turkey, the land was used by villagers for many years. The cadastral survey in question was carried out in 1960. However, during the cadastral work, the villagers claimed that the use rights of the land belonged to them, and filed a lawsuit for the land to be given to them. In 1963, the Batman Cadastral Court rejected the application of the villagers. In its reasoned decision, the court stated that the land plot in question had been transferred to the Treasury from Armenians who had ‘disappeared’ 40 years ago and belonged to the Treasury since then, and that the villagers who had filed the lawsuit had no rights over the land, and rejected their case. This is the most important official document on the ownership of the land.

Court accepts case

Sudjian’s lawyers presented the 1963 decision of the Cadastral Court as evidence in the new case. The lawyers stated that the registration carried out by the Treasury was “irregular” and demanded the annulment of the registration, and the payment of compensation.

The lawyers also pointed out to the fact that in the other case involving the Diyarbakır Airport land, the prior decision of the court to reject the case on the basis of the expiry of the 10-year period involving the loss of rights had been annulled by the Court of Cassation and demanded the acceptance of the file. The court thus accepted the file and launched the case. The court will begin survey work following the examination of the cadastral records of the land plot and the land deeds presented by the lawyers.

Diyarbakır-based Dutch journalist faces jail term for ‘PKK propaganda’

February 2, 2015 By administrator

DİYARBAKIR – Anadolu Agency

A lawsuit has been opened against Frederike Geerdink, a Diyarbakır-based Dutch journalist, on charges of making propaganda on behalf of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with the prosecutor demanding between one and five years in prison.

Geerdink was briefly detained on Jan. 6 as a part of an operation launched by the Diyarbakır Prosecutor’s Office after three different complaints were made to the Ankara police.

The 6th High Criminal Court has accepted an indictment in which the prosecutor’s office said it was determined that the journalist made PKK propaganda by sharing the organization’s flags and member’s activities on social media.

In her testimony, Geerdink pled not guilty and refused that she shared posts either praising the PKK or against the state, the indictment also said.

Geerdink’s detention came hours after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had declared at a meeting of ambassadors in Ankara that “there is no freer press, in Europe or elsewhere in the world, than in Turkey.”

Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders was also attending the meeting when the journalist was detained.

While Koenders raised his concerns during his meetings with Turkish colleagues, including Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, on Jan. 6, the Turkish side defended the impartiality of the ongoing judicial process.

“The incident caused uproar because of Turkey’s unfair record,” Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ said Jan. 7, asking whether European countries would not demand the testimony of a Turk “if they made propaganda of a terrorist organization.”

“Turkey is facing unfair criticism over the detained journalist,” he added.

February/02/2015

Davutoglu the hypocrite: for the Charlie Hebdo in Paris march & against Charlie Hebdo in Diyarbakır march?

January 25, 2015 By administrator

DİYARBAKIR – Doğan News Agency
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has greeted around 100,000 people who protested French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Diyarbakır, while also cheering for Turkish Hizbullah.

“The region suddenly has a reaction whenever a shameless act happens toward the Prophet Muhammad. I greet each and every brother who defends the Prophet Muhammad here,” Davutoğlu said during his speech at the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) provincial congress in Diyarbakır.

The Lovers of the Prophet Platform organized a two-hour long Jan. 24 protest at the central İstasyon Square with the participation of thousands of demonstrators coming from nearby towns.

Most speeches, banners and slogans, either in Turkish, Kurdish or Arabic, targeted Charlie Hebdo for publishing Prophet Muhammad cartoons. In reference to the “Je Suis Charlie” slogan, some banners read “I am Hizbullah in Kurdistan,” “I am Hamas in Palestine,” “I am Malcolm X in America” and “I am Imam Shamil in Chechnya.”

“As long as you are the enemies of Allah, we will be your enemies,” Free Cause Party (Hüda-Par) chair Molla Osman Teyfur said in his speech, vowing to “cut the tongue that talked against the prophet.”

Hüda-Par shares the same supporter base with Turkey’s Hizbullah, whose members are predominately Kurdish Islamists. The group was allegedly created by the state in the 1990s to fight the Kurdish separatist movement. Hizbullah and sympathizers of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have been engaging in clashes since the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) last year.

Over 40 people were killed in 35 provinces on Oct. 6-7 during the worst unrest in the recent past, with most of those killed dying at the hands of Hizbullah supporters, who were allegedly backed by the security forces or the police.

Meanwhile, a group led by the Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi) marched in Ankara for the love of Prophet Muhammad and denounced terrorism on Jan. 25, according to state-run Anadolu Agency. Another group of around 300 people also marched in Eskişehir in protest of defamation against the Prophet Muhammad.

January/25/2015

100 Thousand Kurds chant for Turkish Hizbullah in Charlie Hebdo protest in southeast Turkey

January 25, 2015 By administrator

DİYARBAKIR

Around 100,000 Kurds have protested the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Diyarbakır, a Kurdish-majority city in Turkey’s southeast, cheering for Turkish Hizbullah.

The Lovers of the Prophet Platform organized the two-hour long Jan. 24 protest at the central İstasyon Square with the participation of thousands of demonstrators coming from nearby towns, Doğan News Agency reported.

Most speeches, banners and slogans, either in Turkish, Kurdish or Arabic, targeted Charlie Hebdo for publishing Prophet Muhammad cartoons. In reference to the “Je Suis…” slogan, some banners read “I am Hizbullah in Kurdistan,” “I am Hamas in Palestine,” “I am Malcolm X in America” and “I am Imam Shamil in Chechnya.”

“As long as you are the enemies of Allah, we will be your enemies,” the Free Cause Party (Hüda Par) chair Molla Osman Teyfur said in his speech, vowing to “cut the tongue that talked against the Prophet.”

Hüda Par shares the same supporters base with Turkey’s Hizbullah, whose members are mostly Kurdish Islamists. The group was allegedly created by the state in the 1990s to fight the Kurdish movement. Both organizations have been engaging in clashes with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) since the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) last year. Over 40 people were killed in 35 provinces on Oct. 6-7 during the worst unrest in the recent past, with most of those killed dying either at the hands of Hizbullah supporters, allegedly backed by the security forces or the police.