ngo Archives

Turkish police arrest chief of NGO that sought to reach out to Armenia

October 19, 2017 By administrator

Turkish police on Thursday, October 19 detained a businessman who is one of the country’s leading civil society figures, reports said, raising fresh alarm over freedom of expression under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, AFP revealed.

Osman Kavala was detained at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport after flying in from the southern city of Gaziantep, the Dogan news agency said.

Kavala is the chairman of the Anadolu Kultur (Anatolian Culture) NGO which aims to overcome differences within Turkish society especially through culture and the arts.

The organisation has also sought to reach out to Armenia, with whom Turkey has no relations partly due to the dispute over the mass killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire which Yerevan regards as genocide.

Dogan news agency said Kavala had been in Gaziantep to discuss a project with Germany’s cultural outreach organisation the Goethe Institut.

It said he was detained in line with an investigation by Istanbul prosecutors, without giving further details.

The arrest comes as concern intensifies over the fate of Turkish civil society under the state of emergency imposed after last year’s failed coup that aimed to oust Erdogan.

Eleven human rights activists, including the two top figures from Amnesty International’s Turkey branch, will go on trial in Istanbul next week on hugely-controversial terror charges.

Meanwhile, 156 journalists, most detained under the state of emergency, are currently behind bars, according to the P24 activist group.

Reports said Kavala was born in Paris but took over the family business when his father died. He is also the co-founder of the Iletisim publishing house.

Three local NGOs accredited to observe Armenian parliamentary elections

February 14, 2017 By administrator

Three local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have accredited as of February 14 to engage in election monitoring processes during Armenia’s parliamentary elections set on April 2.

As Panorama.am learnt from the Central Electoral Commission of Armenia (CEC), Democracy Law International Center (133 observers), Chamber of United Leaders (137 observers), and Pan-Armenian Youth Association (189 observers) NGOs have been registered thus far to oversight the forthcoming elections.
According to the CEC approved timetable for preparing and conducting parliamentary elections, the application period for registration observer groups or making changes in the submitted lists runs from December 30 through March 18.

Earlier, the Head of the Public Relations Department at the National Assembly of Armenia Arsen Babayan told Panorama.am that invitations to observe the elections had been sent to number of international organizations, such as CoE, PACE, OSCE, and CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly.

To remind, recently published OSCE/ODIHR Needs Assessment Mission Report recommended an election observation mission for the 2 April parliamentary elections, contingent upon the receipt of an official invitation from the Armenian authorities.

In its recommendation the authors of the report had suggested apart from the core team of experts the secondment of 24 long-term observers from OSCE participating states to follow the electoral process countrywide, and 250 short-term observers to follow election day proceedings.

Report: Iraqi Kurdistan govt shuts down Yazda for alleged Iran ties

January 26, 2017 By administrator

Yazda NGO, a Yazidi rights organization in Iraqi Kurdistan. Photo: SM

BAGHDAD,— According to a Sunni source from Baghdad, Yazda group that is allegedly tied to Iran has recently been shut down in Iraqi Kurdistan for violating NGO rules in the region.

The Duhok Governor in Iraqi Kurdistan recently stated: “The Yazda organization has been shut down for a number of reasons including the use of its humanitarian license to undertake political activities which is completely contrary to its license. Yazda has been adopting a radically politically oriented media rhetoric against the Kurdistan Regional Government KRG.”

The Iraqi source told JerusalemOnline that the Yazda group is allegedly backed by Iran and seeks to evacuate all Yazidis from Mosul to the Syrian border. The source claims that such an exodus of Yazidis makes it easier for Iran to control the region: “The Shia militias are already in Tel Afar and they are moving to Mosul. From there, they can have the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline and connect the Shia crescent to the Mediterranean. That way, it will be easy for them to bring stuff from Iran into Syria. Yazda is their strongest proxy that operates under a humanitarian mission in order to encourage people to migrate and they use their UN Goodwill Ambassador Nadia Murad in order to accomplish this goal.”

The Yazidi rights organization, Yazda, said in press release on January 18, that it has reached a deal with the KRG with regards to reopening its offices in Iraq’s Kurdish region.

According to the source, Nadia Murad has traveled around the world in order to find places of refuge for misplaced Yazidis in the West: “Yazda and Nadia Murad visited Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Scotland, the United States, Spain and other places, asking each country to take in several thousand Yazidis.

Germany already took in 1,100 rescued Yazidi victims by ISIS but the German program left many Yazidi victims behind and non-displaced Yazidis operating under Dr. Mirza Dinaye, the uncle of Mirzad Ismael, the founder of Yazda, were sent there instead. Mirza Dinaye, Murad Ismael and other family members were provided visas and German permanent residency via this program. 30 of his family members are already in Germany and they are not displaced persons nor were they captured by ISIS.”

The Iraqi source in Baghdad stated: “Mr. Dinaye was a former advisor to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. He is well connected to Mrs. Hero I. Ahmad, a close ally of Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian Al Quds Force Commander, and this is clear proof of the connection between Yazda and Iran. On the other hand, Abu Shuja the smuggler, who is a nephew of Mr. Mirza Dinaye, received millions of dollars from the KRG for his efforts in rescuing Yazidi women but the KRG stopped to reimburse Abu Shuja following corruption allegations. He went to Germany through the same program along with his two wives and all of his children while the victims were left behind in displaced persons camps.”

A Yazidi source told JerusalemOnline: “It is well known that Yazda has been promoting immigration for Yazidis and has been campaigning internationally to influence world leaders to uproot Yazidis from their homeland and traditional religious lands through migration. This is in direct contrast to the desires being communicated by Yazidi religious and community leaders and their requests for community based recovery programs.” In an interview with CBC, a spokeswoman for Masoud Barzani stated: “Yazidis are an indigenous minority and the Kurdish Regional Government is against any organized attempt to mass migrate members of its community. Prime Minister Barzani thinks the aid and support should be delivered to them in their country.”

Yazda was established in 2015 in the northern Kurdish city of Duhok and has provided emergency aid, including psychological care, to Yazidi women and girls upon their rescue. They also provide education and training to create opportunities for women and girls to build stable, self-sufficient futures.

Islamic State group has captured most parts of the Yazidi Sinjar district in northwest Iraq on August 3, 2014 which led thousands of Kurdish families to flee to Mount Sinjar, where they were trapped in it and suffered from significant lack of water and food, killing and abduction of thousands of Yazidis as well as rape and captivity of thousands of women.

According to Human Rights organizations, thousands of Yazidi women and girls have been forced to marry or been sold into sexual slavery by the IS jihadists.

According to Yazidi member of Iraqi parliament Vian Dakhil 3,770 Kurdish Yazidi women and children still in Islamic State captivity.

Source: http://ekurd.net/kurdistan-yazda-iran-ties-2017-01-26

Terrorist State of Turkey Massive Protests break out as Erdogan suspends 100s of NGOs

November 12, 2016 By administrator

Protests have erupted in Istanbul after Turkey suspended the activities of 370 non-governmental groups, including human rights and children’s organizations, as part of its post-coup crackdown.

“The organizations are not shut down, they are being suspended. There is strong evidence that they are linked to terrorist organizations,” said Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus on Saturday.

According to the country’s Interior Ministry, 153 of the NGOs had ties to the US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for the mid-July failed coup. Ankara says some 190 of them had ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), eight to Daesh, and 19 to the banned Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army-Front.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU and the US. A shaky ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015, and attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.

Over the past few months, Turkish ground and air forces have been carrying out operations against PKK positions in the country’s troubled southeastern border region as well as Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region and northern Syria.

The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey since 1984. The conflict has left more than 40,000 people dead.

“Turkey has to fight terrorism on so many different fronts. We are trying to clear the state institutions from Gulenists. At the same time we are fighting against Kurdish militants and Islamic State,” added Kurtulmus.

The Progressive Lawyers’ Association, which was among the halted NGOs, said it would “take a stand against any unlawful intervention on legal firms.”

“It’s impossible for us to find the closure or activity cessation of organizations without court rulings democratic,” it added.

Meanwhile, thousands of pro-Kurdish protesters in Germany have held a demonstration in protest against what they call Ankara’s crackdown on dissent.

The July 15 coup in Turkey began when a faction of the military declared it was in control of the country and the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was no more in charge.

Tanks, helicopters, and soldiers clashed with police and people on the streets of Ankara and Istanbul. Between 200 and 300 people were killed on all sides in the attempted coup d’état.

Emergency decrees have since extended the period of police detention without judicial review from four to 30 days and allowed the authorities to deny detainees access to lawyers for up to five days. The government in Ankara has launched a sweeping crackdown on those believed to have played a role in the failed coup. It has arrested over 35,000 people and sacked over 100,000 others over their suspected links with Gulen, who has rejected the accusation.

GERMANY Armenian Genocide: The German media have rejected a revisionist advertising by several Turkish NGOs

July 21, 2016 By administrator

turkish-german, solidarity According to a statement issued by the Platform of Turkish-German solidarity, a press release issued by the Turkish non-governmental organizations to protest against the resolution on the Armenian Genocide in the German parliament on June 2 was rejected by the German newspapers.

This decision of the German media has attracted sharp criticism from Holocaust deniers.