On 1er June, President Erdoğan, facing increasingly unfavourable polls in Turkey, renewed his threat of a new military operation against Rojava before the Parliament. He repeated his desire to establish a so-called “security zone” 30 km deep along the Turkish-Syrian border, which would complement the territories already invaded by Ankara in recent years. He specifically named the towns of Tell Rifaat and Manbij, west of the Euphrates, where thousands of displaced Kurds from Afrin are already living, as targets for “cleansing” (AFP). Another likely target is Kobanê, a city with high symbolic value for the Kurds. The Turkish media started the psychological war by hammering the imminence of the operation...
The US Secretary of State immediately reacted by reiterating the US opposition to such an operation, which would “undermine regional stability”. Alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Anthony Blinken hammered home the point: “We oppose any escalation in northern Syria and support maintaining the current ceasefire lines” (AFP). The next day, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova expressed a similar position: “We hope that Ankara will refrain from actions that could lead to a dangerous deterioration of an already difficult situation in Syria”. For Moscow, any operation carried out “without the consent of the legitimate government of the Syrian Arab Republic [...] would constitute a direct violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” (Al-Jazeera).
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) warned that a Turkish attack would force them to suspend operations against ISIS in order to defend themselves, and on the 21st, the administration of al-Hol camp warned against the risk of escape of thousands of jihadists still held there... Moscow called for the deployment of Syrian troops to the area targeted by Ankara, but on the 5th, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi responded by telling Reuters that his forces were ready to coordinate with Syrian troops to oppose the Turks and their proxies, but that sending ground reinforcements was not necessary, if the Syrian army “[used] its air defence systems against Turkish planes”. Abdi added, in an apparent warning to Damascus: “Our priority is to defend Syrian territory, and no one should think of taking advantage of this situation to make gains on the ground”.
On the 8th, the US Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, told in a parliamentary hearing: “We are making absolutely relentless efforts towards the Turkish government to get them to abandon this reckless venture”, but refused to rule out that Ankara would overrule... There is some hope, however, because, as Christopher Phillips notes in Middle-East Eye, “Turkey’s previous invasions and operations against the YPG were only made possible by the approval of Moscow or Washington”, both of which “control Syrian airspace”, and this time, “both are opposed to further attacks”. Philips adds, however, that Ankara can now put pressure on both Moscow and Washington thanks to a new element: the Ukrainian conflict...
On 14 and 15 June, the 18th so-called “Astana meetings” between Iran, Russia, Turkey and the Syrian opposition were held in Kazakhstan. According to the Turkish Foreign Minister, all participants “reaffirmed that all attempts to create illegitimate autonomy initiatives under the pretext of fighting terrorism are unacceptable”, and “condemned the actions of countries that support terrorist entities, including illegitimate autonomy initiatives in northeast Syria”. But at the same time, the Russian President’s Special Representative for Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev, used a new argument against a Turkish operation: the attack would “encourage separatist sentiments in the so-called Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria (AANES), which is not in the interests of Turkey, Russia, Iraq, and Iran” (Kurdistan-24).
On the ground, reinforcements have been sent one after the other. Moscow opened the ball on the 3rd by reinforcing its Al-Sai’diyah base in Manbij (SOHR). On the 16th, Turkey in turn sent a convoy of tank trucks, armoured vehicles and troop transport trucks to the province of Aleppo. The next day, tanks carrying American flags entered areas where the Syrian “National Army” and Turkish forces are deployed... On the 27th, a second Turkish convoy of mine-clearing, armoured vehicles and troop carriers arrived (SOHR)...
By the end of the month, despite rising tensions, Ankara had not launched any general offensive against the AANES. However, military harassment continued almost daily along the entire frontline between the SDF and Turkish forces, from Manbij in the west (Aleppo province) to Hasakah in the East, including the Christian town of Tell Tamr, and the strategic east-west M4 highway...
Turkish pressure was exerted all month in northern Aleppo province, from Afrin to the Euphrates. On 1st June, for the third time in 15 days, a Turkish drone struck a clinic in Tell Rifaat, a town 25 km north of Aleppo held by the AANES, where there is also a Russian base, without causing any casualties. The next day, fighters from the Manbij Military Council foiled an infiltration attempt by the pro-Turkish “National Army” before launching a counter-attack on a Turkish base. Between Aleppo and Afrin, Turkish artillery injured a 13-year-old boy and killed dozens of sheep. Firing intensified on the 3rd, with around 60 rounds hitting five Kurdish-held areas without injury, and on the 4th, with more than 100 rounds hitting ten different areas. On the 7th, the outskirts of Manbij were hit again, while a member of the pro-Turkish faction “Samarkand” was killed by a missile launched by the Al-Bab Military Council (a SDF force seeking to retake this city from the Turks). On the 11th, Turkish shelling caused fires in villages near Manbij, and on the 15th, more than 30 rockets hit the city and its surroundings while its Military Council managed to shoot down a Turkish drone. The Turks targeted Tell Rifaat again on the 17th, and artillery exchanges continued in northern Aleppo province until the 22nd. On the 27th, an Ahrar Al-Sham member involved in an infiltration attempt was killed between Jerablous and Manbij. On the 29th, intense Turkish artillery bombardment, around 150 rockets, targeting Kurdish and regime positions, set fire to farmland without causing casualties. The area around the Russian post of Kashtaa’ar was also targeted. On the 30th, further fire was directed at four villages near Manbij.
Further East, the province of Raqqa was also targeted. On the 1st of the month, Turkish artillery hit the area around Kobanê and the former anti-ISIS coalition base in the city without causing any casualties. After ten days of tense calm, after heavy artillery fire on the 13th, firing on the Tell Abyad and Ain-Issa region became almost daily again. On the 23rd, a “kamikaze” drone targeted a house in Al-Saffawiyah, near Ayn Issa, without causing any casualties, and the next day, a cement factory was hit in Tell Abyad.
Another area that was continuously hit is the Hasaka region, at the eastern end of the country, and in particular Tall Tamr. From the 2nd, an intense artillery bombardment on the outskirts of this town held by the SDF and where Syrian soldiers are present caused a massive exodus of civilians, including the inhabitants of Zarkan. Russian helicopters flew over the area, where at least one civilian was injured. On the 4th, new Turkish fire damaged the power plant, causing a blackout, and wounded 6 regime soldiers. Then a precarious calm punctuated by regular Russian helicopter overflights was established until the 17th. The Turkish artillery then resumed its firing, which continued on the 18th and intensified on the 22nd, without causing any casualties, but causing a new power cut. The 27th and 28th were marked by two drone attacks on a SDF post in Tall Tamr, and then on SDF vehicles near Dêrîk, in which at least one fighter was killed and others injured. The SOHR has counted 33 Turkish drone attacks against the AANES since January, killing 21 people, including 6 women and 2 children, and wounding more than 62... The AANES had already published on the 21st its own count for the first two weeks of June, listing “982 heavy artillery shells and internationally banned cluster munitions”.
Turkey is also continuing its “water war” against the Kurds. For the second year in a row, Ankara is withholding water from the Euphrates in its dams, whose flow has fallen below 200 m3 /s while the Syrian-Turkish agreement provides for a minimum of 500 m3 /s... Furthermore, pro-Turkish groups have dammed the Khabur River. AANES has provided irrigation assistance and subsidised seeds and fuel to farmers, and in Raqqa, the Directorate of Agriculture has called on them to cultivate 25% of their land with yellow corn. Ankara’s deleterious activities come at a time when drought and rising temperatures linked to climate change are already hitting northeast Syria particularly hard, turning wheat fields into fodder for sheep, while the conflict in Ukraine is disrupting wheat imports (AFP). Turning water into a weapon that indiscriminately targets the entire population is a crime against humanity, but the SOHR’s repeated warnings to the international community of an impending humanitarian catastrophe do not seem to interest anyone...
In Afrin, the month was dominated by the conflict between the inhabitants and the private Turkish electricity company STE, which is supposed to provide energy to the region. After raising its tariffs and declaring a daily 10-hour power cut, all in violation of agreements with the local administration, STE refused to discuss its shortcomings and modus operandi, triggering almost daily protests. Further protests took place in Al-Bab and Azaz where other Turkish electricity companies brought in by the occupiers took similar decisions. In Afrin, after a peaceful sit-in in front of STE’s offices, angry protesters eventually forced their way into the building and ransacked it on the 3rd. The same events took place in Al-Bab with the AK Energy office, which had doubled its tariffs. The protests against the energy shortage gradually spread to all Turkish-occupied areas of Aleppo province. In Marae’, demonstrators set fire to the local council building while chanting slogans calling for the Turks to leave. In Jindires, the guards of the Governor’s HQ and the “military police” opened fire to disperse the protesters, injuring at least 2 civilians. Interestingly, the next day, when one of the two wounded died, it emerged that he was a member of the pro-Turkish Jayish Al-Sharqiyyah faction from Deir Ezzor who had come to the demonstration unarmed.
On the other hand, the daily exactions of the pro-Turkish factions to which Ankara has delegated the control of its occupation zones continue. These include the sale of stolen houses and the illegal felling of fruit trees, such as on the 23rd in Jindires, where after a quarrel a member of Al-Sharqiyyah called in some 20 armed men to evict a Kurdish family from their home (ARK News). On the 20th, in the countryside of Afrin, a civilian from the Raju district was run over and killed by a Turkish armoured vehicle – an incident that is becoming increasingly frequent due to the excessive speed of drivers (WKI). The situation was further aggravated by the fratricidal factional fighting that began on the 7th and only subsided on the 19th with the conclusion of a truce after Turkish mediation (Reuters).
The jandarma (Turkish gendarmes) guarding the border also continue their exactions: on the 24th, they severely tortured 3 young Syrians trying to enter Turkey near Amouda, and on the 30th, in the same region, opened fire on a broken-down civilian vehicle.
Regarding the fight against ISIS, the coalition announced on the 16th that it had captured in a helicopter operation an important leader of the organisation in Syria, an “experienced bomb maker”. His identity was not initially revealed, but in response to a question from AFP, he was later identified as Hani Ahmed Al-Kurdi, a former ISIS leader in Raqqa. He was hiding in Al-Humayrah, a village in Aleppo province just 4 km from the Turkish border and in an area under the control of Turkish soldiers and their Syrian auxiliaries... (AFP)
The jihadists remain dangerous. Early on the 20th, they ambushed a regime military bus near Raqqa on the road to Homs, killing 15 fighters and wounding several others. Then a new attack killed 9 on the 23rd, several fighters wounded on the 20th died, and with another attack east of Damascus, there was a total of 30 victims in 4 days (AFP).
In Al-Hol camp, where 56,000 people are still living, 94% of them women and children and just under 50% Iraqis, the situation is still deteriorating. 106 people, including many women, have been murdered there in 18 months, 5 since the beginning of June. On the 24th, the Kurdish Asayish (Security) launched its nth sweep, resulting in 3 arrests.
As the countries of origin of nationals interned in AANES camps are still reluctant to take back their citizens, repatriations continue to be carried out in small batches. Earlier this month, AANES handed over 153 Iraqi internees to their government (WKI), and another 150 families, about 600 people, are expected to follow in early July (Rûdaw). Hundreds of Syrian families have been able to return to their region of origin following local mediation, but these former detainees are having difficulty reintegrating, as the population is suspicious of them (AFP). On the 21st, a Belgian mission repatriated 16 children and 6 mothers from the Roj camp, who had travelled via Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, to return to Belgium by military plane. The 6 women, who had already been sentenced to prison terms, were imprisoned.
Unlike Belgium or Germany, France, which has some 80 wives of jihadists and 200 children in Syrian camps, has so far maintained a piecemeal return policy, for which it is increasingly criticised. Since 2016, 126 French children have returned from Syria or Iraq, most of them infants. The Collective regrouping most of the families of those interned in Syria denounces the non-respect of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Paris is a signatory. On 14 December 2021, a 28-year-old French woman died of diabetes in Syria, leaving a 6-year-old girl orphan. On 23 December, another French woman interned in Roj with her 4 children, suffering from cancer and in a life-threatening condition, launched a heart-rending appeal to the French presidential couple to obtain her repatriation (AFP). After the repatriation of the 16 Belgian children, the lawyer of the collective, Marie Dosé, again denounced the French position, recalling the living conditions of the camps, described as catastrophic by the UN: “Repatriations must be done quickly. It is over 40 degrees in the Roj camp where the children are in their third, fourth or fifth summer for some. France is the only European country to have been condemned by the International Committee on the Rights of the Child”, she points out.
On the 9th of this month, the Turkish President officially announced his 3rd candidacy for the presidential election. The debate quickly started as to whether the Constitution allows him to do so. Indeed, a constitutional amendment adopted in 2007 stipulates that the president’s term of office is five years and limits their number to two. This amendment remained in place at the time of the 2017 referendum that endorsed the shift to a presidential system. Mr Erdoğan could, however, circumvent it by asking parliament to call early elections, which requires three-fifths of the vote, or 360. This would require the support of the opposition, with the presidential AKP party and its far-right MHP allies together holding only 333 seats...
It is too early to predict what Mr Erdoğan plans to do, but what is clear is that as Turkey sinks into economic crisis, the polls are increasingly unfavourable to him. According to the latest figures from the MetroPOLL polling institute, the AKP now has the support of only 26.5% of voters. Yet Mr Erdoğan continues to refuse to raise interest rates, preferring to sack anyone who opposes his personal view of the economy...
The official statistics institute TÜİK put the inflation rate for May at 73.5%, the highest in 23 years, while the Turkish lira still fell 16.75% against the dollar. The previous head of the TÜİK was sacked in late January after publishing an inflation rate that was deemed too high. However, the independent economic research group ENAG came up with a rate twice as high: 160.8%! The sanction was not long in coming: Istanbul’s Yeditepe University launched an investigation against the teacher who heads ENAG, Veysel Ulusoy, who could lose his job for “publishing figures that harm the university’s reputation” (France-24).
One of the consequences of the crisis is the hardening towards the more than three million Syrian refugees in the country. The opposition, and in particular the Kemalist CHP, is calling for their departure and accusing Erdoğan of laxity, but even more worrying for the president, his own electoral base is on the same position. This is an unexpected backlash for a politician who has never hesitated to use the refugees as an instrument in relation to the European Union... From welcoming them in the name of Sunni solidarity, he has now switched to “voluntary return” to Syria (France-24).
The repression of civil society is still intensifying.
On 1st June, the trial of the country’s main feminist association, Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız, whose name (“We will stop the feminicides”) indicates its aim, founded in 2010 after one of these murders, was due to begin. But the hearing was finally postponed to 5 October. The origin of the case: complaints, some dating back more than 6 years, accuse the NGO of “destroying the family under the pretext of defending women’s rights”, and caused the opening in April of dissolution proceedings for “activities against the law and morality”. The disappearance of the organisation, which recorded 423 feminicides in 2021, and 160 since January, would mark a new setback in Turkey after the country’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention in 2021 (Le Figaro).
On 26 September, police in Istanbul prevented hundreds of people from taking part in the Pride March, banned by local authorities, and arrested dozens. This annual parade on Istiklal Avenue has long gathered thousands of participants, but conservative circles are hostile to it, and the AKP government’s repression is getting tougher every year (Reuters).
Furthermore, control of the media has become vital for the government. At the end of May, the law penalising the dissemination of “fake news” was submitted to parliament. Under the guise of fighting disinformation, it actually aims to do the opposite: allow the government to impose its own! The president of the Turkish Journalists’ Association, Nazim Bilgin, described it as a “law of censorship” (AFP).
Adopted in record time by two parliamentary committees, this “disinformation law” is due to be put to a vote soon. It will punish journalists guilty of “spreading misleading information” with one to three years in prison and deprive them of their press card. It will also oblige social networks and websites to hand over to the courts their users’ personal information. This law will extend the one adopted in 2020 to oblige international platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to appoint a legal representative in the country, which made them more vulnerable to sanctions if they did not remove within 48 hours content that displeased the authorities.
It is a sad irony that journalists who want to do their job by reporting on events often get into more trouble with the law than the perpetrators of the events reported. Such is the case with Berivan Altan, a reporter for Mezopotamya Agency, who reported on an incident in the Elmadağ neighbourhood of Ankara in an article entitled “Racist attack on Kurdish family in Ankara: women and children evicted from neighbourhood”. Mezopotamya reported that the Ankara prosecutor immediately opened an investigation against her for “provoking hatred and animosity”, and summoned her for questioning on the 3rd, asking her who had asked her to write her article... (Bianet)
Solidarity among journalists is also becoming a crime. The co-chairwoman of the “Tigris-Euphrates” journalists’ association DFG (Dicle Fırat Gazeteciler Derneği) and editor-in-chief of Mezopotamya, Dicle Müftüoğlu, was arrested in Diyarbakir on the 3rd after a police raid on her home and placed in police custody for 3 days for sending money to the jailed journalists Nedim Türfent and Ziya Ataman. She was released on the 6th after making a video statement to the Van Prosecutor’s Office, where she was later transferred and placed under judicial supervision, before being released on parole (Bianet).
On 8 August, Diyarbakir police arrested 22 journalists or employees of media and production companies close to the HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party, “pro-Kurdish”), including Serdar Altan, co-chair of DFG. They were charged with “belonging to the press wing” of the PKK and taken into custody. They were placed in solitary confinement, denied access to a lawyer and claimed that the authorities were preparing fabricated evidence against them (Kurdistan au Féminin). On the 16th, 16 of them were charged with “membership of a terrorist organisation”, the others were released under judicial supervision.
The 22 detainees are: Serdar Altan, co-chairman of DFG, Mehmet Ali Ertaş, editor-in-chief of Xwebûn newspaper, Safiye Alagaş and Gülşen Koçuk, director and editor-in-chief of JinNews women’s agency respectively, Aziz Oruç, editor-in-chief of Mezopotamya, journalists Ömer Çelik, Suat Doğuhan, Ramazan Geciken, Esmer Tunç, Neşe Toprak, Zeynel Abidin Bulut, Mazlum Doğan Güler, Mehmet Şahin, Elif Üngür, İbrahim Koyuncu, Remziye Temel, Mehmet Yalçın, Abdurrahman Öncü, Lezgin Akdeniz and Kadir Bayram and citizens Feynaz Koçuk and Ihsan Ergülen (Kurdistan Women).
Erol Onderoğlu, RSF’s representative in Turkey, who has had his own run-in with the courts, described the indictment as a “pre-electoral manoeuvre”: a year before the next presidential election, the government is seeking to “deprive [the Kurdish political class] of a means of expression” (AFP).
Solidarity was organised to oppose these intimidation attempts. On the 14th, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), representing more than 320,000 journalists in 45 countries, which was holding its general assembly in Izmir, elected a president, Croatian Maja Sever, and for the first time a Turkish vice-president, the Executive Director of the Turkish Journalists Union (TGS) Mustafa Kuleli. The General Assembly unanimously adopted the motion presented by the Turkish trade union DİSK-Press on solidarity with Kurdish journalists and against the new “Disinformation Law” introduced by the AKP (Bianet). On the 19th, the EFJ issued a statement calling for the immediate release of 16 Turkish journalists “imprisoned for doing their job” (RojInfo). On the 22nd, hundreds of journalists and media workers gathered in Ankara in front of the Atatürk statue in the Ulus district to call for the withdrawal of the bill. In a symbolic gesture of protest, they placed pens and pencils in front of the statue. A second demonstration of support was held on the 24th in Istanbul, organised by the DFG and the Mesopotamia Women Journalists Platform (MKGP). Members of DİSK-Press and the Media and Legal Studies Association (MLSA), as well as HDP MP Musa Piroğlu, were present. Diren Yurtsever of the Mezopotamya Agency said, “The ruling power, which seeks to strengthen its power through elections and warmongering, wants to intimidate the media that it cannot control”. Speaking after her, Candan Yıldız of DİSK-Press said that these arrests are not only the problem of Kurds, just as the “censorship law” is not only the problem of journalists. Piroğlu intervened in the same sense: “If the press is silenced, then the people are silenced and blindfolded”.
It should be noted that, among the Kurdish journalists arrested, Elif Ungur was blamed for her report on the Kurdish singer Nudem Durak, who was arrested in 2015 and sentenced to 19 years in prison for singing in Kurdish... (L’Humanité). The government also wants to intimidate journalists trying to report on the war it is waging against Kurdish culture... In order to flatter the most conservative fringes of the electorate, the government has launched a vast campaign of bans on Kurdish artists as well as on women wearing “inappropriate” or “immoral” clothing or with feminist lyrics. Belonging to all these categories is a guarantee of a ban! Thus, AFP notes, the Kurdish-born artist Aynur Dogan, as well as Niyazi Koyuncu, who sings in the languages of the Black Sea, or Metin and Kemal Kahraman, musicians of Zaza origin, whereas they sing in Turkish, have had their concerts cancelled. All were deemed “inappropriate” by the AKP municipalities of the cities where they were to perform. The singer Melek Mosso, for her part, was unable to perform as planned in Isparta, as an Islamist group took exception to her outfit and her tattooed shoulders, but above all to her calls for women to dress and express themselves freely...
Here too, resistance is being organised. At the beginning of June, the CHP municipality of Istanbul authorised a concert by Melek Mosso, which attracted an “impressive crowd” (AFP). On the 15th, the legendary musician Ciwan Haco called for unity among all Kurdish artists and intellectuals, after condemning Turkey’s hostility towards the Kurdish language: “No state bans a language. This ban no longer exists on earth. There is hostility to the language only in Turkey”... (Kurdistan au Féminin) On the 21st, seizing the opportunity of the Music Day to express themselves, a group of Kurdish musicians from the Istanbul Mesopotamia Cultural Centre (MKM) organised an impromptu protest concert on İstiklal Avenue to denounce the bans on concerts and plays. They performed several songs in Kurdish, including Aram Tigran’s famous Zîmanê Kurdî (“Kurdish Language”), before a brief speech.
On the 22nd, the administrator (kayyım) appointed for Batman by the state after the invalidation of the two elected co-mayors ordered the destruction of the bust of the poet Cegerxwîn in a city park. This decision provoked a demonstration in which the two dismissed HDP mayors, Songül Korkmaz and Mehmet Demir, participated. Denouncing the administrator’s “fascist conception of the nation-state”, Korkmaz recalled that, unlike the AKP, the HDP considers multilingualism and cultural diversity as riches... Cegerxwîn, a Kurdish poet from Syria, died in 1984; his statue had been installed in the park in 2007.
While seeking to silence journalists and attacking Kurdish artists, the government continues to repress HDP cadres and members. The most minimal pretexts are used to criminalise membership or support for this party, as in the case of the pregnant woman accompanied by a child in Van, both of whom were imprisoned on the evening of the 15th for their T-shirts bearing the photo of the former HDP co-chairman Selahattin Demirtaş, who has been imprisoned since November 2016. Six witnesses who dared to protest were also apprehended. HDP MP Murat Sarışaç shared a video of the altercation between the police and the witnesses on Twitter (SCF Stockholm).
On the morning of the 16th, Istanbul police launched simultaneous raids on the homes of 10 HDP cadres, including the provincial and district co-chairs. Mezopotamya Agency reported that the list of those arrested includes provincial co-chair Besra İşsever, Üsküdar district co-chair Aysel Özbey and journalist Saliha Aras, in addition to Erkan Tarım, Mümin Odabaş, Harun Bağatur, Enes Özdaş and Ercan Özer. Provincial co-chairman Ferhat Encü, called the operation a “political massacre”, saying that the authorities are trying to “dissolve the HDP [...] through the judicial system”. Most of those arrested had taken part on the 12th in Bursa in a rally calling for an end to prison confinement for Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been imprisoned on the island of İmralı since 1999 (SCF Stockholm).
On the 19th, CHP MP Sezgin Tanrıkulu published his report on human rights violations in May. According to this document, the right to life of 207 citizens was violated during this month. 697 citizens who participated in demonstrations were imprisoned during this period, of which 4 died in prison, 1 in police custody, and 38 in violence against women. Tanrıkulu also released frightening figures regarding torture: 316 people, including two children, were tortured in detention, and 53 in prisons (Duvar).
On the 27th, police launched new raids at dawn on the homes of 38 HDP members and several locations in Mersin, Diyarbakir, Van, Mardin and Adana, including the premises of the Binevş Cultural Centre and Art Association in the latter city. 36 people were apprehended, including the provincial co-chairs for Adana, Helin Kaya and Mehmet Karakış, and the deputy mayor of Seyhan municipality, Funda Buyruk. Witnesses described very violent raids, during which their doors were broken down and they were beaten and sometimes stripped for a search.
The continuing deterioration of the rule of law in Turkey continues to provoke international reactions. On 7 July, the European Parliament adopted a resolution by 448 votes (67 against, 107 abstentions) deploring “the decline in fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law” in Turkey and pointing to the “lack of political will to carry out the necessary reforms” in this area. Even a non-binding resolution of this kind is too much for the Turkish Foreign Ministry, which immediately reacted by calling the report “superficial” and “biased” and accusing the European Parliament of “tolerating” within it “members of terrorist organisations”.
The Pinar Selek case confirms, if it were needed after the conviction of Osman Kavala, that Turkish “justice” does not need evidence or even rationality to convict dissidents. On the evening of the 21st, Turkish sociologist Pınar Selek, who has been living in exile since 2008 and now teaches at the University of Nice, was told by her lawyers that she had been sentenced by the Turkish Supreme Court to life in prison! As with Kavala, the case is totally fabricated. This sentence comes after five acquittals, and 24 years after an explosion that killed seven people and injured 121 in the Istanbul spice bazaar... in 1998. At the time, the 27-year-old daughter of a prominent lawyer, feminist and committed to the rights of transsexuals, writer and anti-militarist, was also conducting research on the Kurdish community. Arrested two days after the explosion, she was tortured by the police who wanted the names of her Kurdish contacts. She was not asked a single question about the explosion. She never gave up any names, and from trial to trial, from acquittal to acquittal, from appeal by the prosecutor to appeal by the prosecutor, the judicial harassment never stopped. Yet several expert reports have established that the explosion was due to a gas leak in a pizza oven... Selek’s conviction is based entirely on the testimony of a man who, after having declared that he had committed the attack with her, then reversed his statement, which had been extorted under torture, and was himself definitively acquitted... The sociologist has decided to take her case to the Turkish Constitutional Court, or even to the European Court of Human Rights (Nice-Matin, Le Point).
On the 17th, Amnesty International granted the convicts of the Gezi trial the status of prisoners of conscience. At the Cannes Film Festival, the premiere of Emin Alper’s political thriller Kurak günler (Burning days) took place with one empty seat: that of associate producer Çiğdem Mater, also a journalist, who had just been sentenced to 18 years in prison for her association with Osman Kavala in the Anadolu Kultur association. One of the charges against Mater was that she had tried to raise funds for a documentary on the Gezi Park movement that was never made. The prosecution did not provide any evidence to support the charges against the accused (Politico)... Let us recall that on April 25, the 13th Istanbul Criminal Court sentenced Osman Kavala to aggravated life imprisonment and Mücella Yapıcı, Çiğdem Mater, Hakan Altınay, Mine Özerden, Can Atalay, Tayfun Kahraman, Yiğit Ali Ekmekçi to 18 years in prison.
Faced with the persistent political impasse that has left Iraq without a new president or government for the past eight months, the unpredictable Shiite leader Moqtada Al-Sadr has once again struck one of the blows of which he has the secret: on 9 June, in a televised speech, he asked the 73 deputies of his political current to prepare “their letters of resignation” so as not to “obstruct” the formation of a new government. This surprise decision seals Sadr’s failure to obtain the “majority government” he wanted to set up, thus breaking with nearly 20 years of “consensus government” (AFP). It is also the failure of the inter-communal alliance built around Sadr’s supporters with the party of Sunni Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halboussi and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Massoud Barzani.
The deadlock was largely due to the fact that neither Sadr’s alliance (155 deputies out of 329) nor his pro-Iranian opponents of the Shiite “Coordination Framework”, allied to the other Kurdish party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), had the number of seats that would have allowed them to pass the hurdle of nominating the President. They have failed three times since the beginning of the year.
Already on the 12th, the president of the parliament, Mohammed al-Halboussi, announced on Twitter that after receiving the letters of resignation of the 73 elected members of Moqtada Sadr, he had had to “reluctantly” accept their resignations. On the 21st, a Lebanese source close to the Shiite party Hezbollah told the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat that Iran had put so much pressure on Sadr to reach an agreement with the “Coordination Framework” that the Shiite leader chose to resign rather than give in. Iran denied any pressure, as did Sadr himself the next day (Rûdaw). But the Iranian media close to the government vented their anger against Sadr, vituperating him as a “breaker of unity”.
On the 23rd, the parliament replaced the resigning members in a swearing-in ceremony welcoming 64 new MPs. The seats left vacant were allocated, as provided for in the constitution, to the candidates who came second in the legislative elections, of whom about 40 belong to the Coordination Framework. Thus, according to AFP’s calculations, this coalition would be the great beneficiary of the mass resignation, acquiring about 130 seats out of 329, which would make it the most important force in the assembly (AFP). However, this does not mean the definitive victory of the pro-Iranians, as a government without the Sadrists could quickly find itself confronted with new street protests, like the ones that had in the autumn of 2019 provoked the call for early elections... This may be Sadr’s calculation to finally participate in the next government.
For Middle East Eye, the series of attacks launched since the beginning of the year against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), dominated by the KDP, can be explained in the context of the struggle for power between Sadr and his pro-Iranian opponents. Let us recall the phases: February, Supreme Court ruling against the KRG’s oil law, March, Iranian missile strike on Erbil, followed by other attacks culminating in the burning of KDP offices in Baghdad at the end of March, and then, at the beginning of April, a new strike aimed at a Kurdish refinery... According to sources close to the KDP, the lack of clear support from Sadr in the face of these attacks led the KDP to gradually distance itself from the Shiite leader, which could have contributed to Sadr’s decision to throw in the towel...
The Shiite news agency Ahl ul-Bayt (ABNA) considers the KDP to be the main loser in this sequence of events, although the Coordination Framework cannot claim victory either: Sadr’s former allies, the KDP and Halbousi’s Sunni party, still have a sufficient blocking minority to prevent or at least complicate his accession to power. ABNA concludes that a phase of discussions will have to begin. The KDP, quick to draw conclusions from the new situation, seems to have anticipated it: immediately after Sadr’s collective resignation request, the Kurdish party appointed a “Negotiation Committee” comprising Fuad Hussein, Benkin Rikani and Shakhawan Abdullah – all of whom known to have relatively good relations with the “Framework”. Shakhawan is also the leader of the KDP deputies in Parliament, and the Kurdish party did participate in the new parliamentary session. After the session, Fatah coalition spokesman Ahmad al-Asadi said that “the national unity government will address all issues related to the Kurdistan Autonomous Region".
Regardless of how the situation develops at the national level, it has already had intra-Kurdish consequences: while talks between the KDP and PUK about a single candidate for president had been stalled for weeks, they seem to have finally started again. On the 25th, PUK MP Karwan Yarwais told Rûdaw that “There is a strong chance that the PUK and the KDP will reach an agreement”, adding that presenting a single candidate for the presidency would be in the interest of the Kurds...
Time will tell whether Erbil-Baghdad relations can be eased, but during this month several events have shown that tensions remain high, both nationally and locally. Already, on 31 May, the Kirkuk Criminal Court sentenced in absentia the former President of the Provincial Council, Rebwar Talabani, to 6 years in prison for “deliberate damage to public property”, on a complaint from the Attorney General. Evicted from his post in October 2017 after helping to organise the Kurdistan independence referendum, Talabani is now an adviser to the Kurdistan Prime minister. He said he had not been officially informed of the verdict, which he rejected as “political”. On the 10th, the same court sentenced 4 former members of the Provincial Council to 15 years in prison in the same terms: they are accused of having kept their official vehicles after the end of their mandate. All of them in a joint letter also described the verdict as “political”, recalling that they had “proved that their vehicles were taken from them by the Hashd al-Shaabi [Iranian-backed militia] on 16 October 2017” [when the latter had regained military control of the city]. It is paradoxical, to say the least, to accuse them in this case!
Tensions also remain over the issue of the management of Kurdistan’s oil resources. On 6 June, the Iraqi Finance Minister threatened not to send its budget to the Region if an agreement was not reached on this issue (NRT). But the President of the Kurdistan Judicial Council, Abdul Jabar Hassan, defended the validity of the KRG oil law, questioning the very constitutionality of the current Supreme Court: “Article 92-2 of the Iraqi Constitution requires the Iraqi Council of Representatives [Parliament] to pass a law to establish an Iraqi Federal Supreme Court [he said]. No such law has been enacted to date”. On the 21st, after new statements by the Minister threatening to open proceedings against oil companies operating in Kurdistan, the KRG filed criminal charges against him for pressuring the companies and threatening to ban them from working in Iraq.
On the 8th, the day before the Shiite leader asked his deputies to resign, a drone attack wounded three people on the road from Erbil to Pirmam, a very sensitive area for the KRG since it is not far from the official residence of the President of the Region in Macif-Salahaddin... The attack, which was not immediately claimed, took place near a building under construction that is to house the future US consulate, and a few hundred meters from the UAE consulate.
The resignation of the Sadrist deputies did not put an end to the recurrent attacks against Kurdistan. On the evening of the 22nd, a Katyusha rocket fell near the Khor Mor gas complex in Chemchemal. This area, halfway between Kirkuk and Sulaimaniyeh, is located on the border of Sulaimaniyeh province, very close to the disputed territories. The targeted installation belongs to Dana Gas, an energy company from the same UAE... According to the anti-terrorist services of the province, “There was no material damage or injuries”. Again, there were no claims of responsibility. At almost the same time, at least two rockets targeted peshmerga positions in Nineveh province (AFP). On the 24th, a second rocket attack targeted Khor Mor again, without causing any casualties or material damage, although a fire broke out. Following these attacks, the Peshmerga and the Iraqi army were placed on high alert against each other, as the Kurds feared that the Iraqi army would take advantage of the attacks to occupy the fields, which they have been asking for control for a long time. On the 26th, Dana Gas preferred to suspend its operations there and bring back all its foreign staff to Suleimaniyeh (WKI).
Another factor of tension is the Turkish anti-PKK military operation. Initiated in April with a wave of bombings, it is now continuing on the ground, looking more and more like a real invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan. The pro-AKP Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak assumed this from the outset, speaking of controlling certain zones permanently by “setting up barracks [...] in order to prevent the PKK from crossing the border” (Courrier International). But the real objective seems to go far beyond this defensive aspect. Securing control of important areas in the Zap and Metina regions would allow Turkish forces to advance towards the Qandil Mountains, a PKK sanctuary, to crush it.
But so far, the advance has proved difficult, with ground troops advancing only “step by step in this area of steep terrain”, hence the use of chemical weapons, as denounced by a media close to the PKK, Medya Haber: “Despite the intense bombardment, the guerrillas are holding out in the tunnels dug in the mountains; the Turkish army has therefore resorted to chemical weapons to dislodge the fighters, as it had already done once last year. As a result of the gas, eight guerrillas were martyred in the Ciyares area and five in the Kurojahro area”. On 24 June, Hawar News also pointed to the inaction of the UN as encouraging Turkey to continue its use of prohibited weapons, and on 25 June, Firat News (ANF) broadcast images showing their use in tunnels used by PKK fighters and quoted a statement issued on 13 June by the PKK’s armed wing. According to the latter, the Turkish army has used chemical weapons at least 779 times in two months in Iraqi Kurdistan, an average of 13 attacks per day.
While the Turkish army benefits from the political rivalry between the PKK and the KDP, so far the latter’s forces have not intervened directly in the fighting. However, this possibility worries the PKK, whose representative was quoted by the Firat News agency at the beginning of June telling: “If the KDP forces decide, as they seem to be tempted to do, to attack our forces in the Metina region, then they must know that we will declare war on them and that the fighting will spread to the whole territory” (Courrier International).
Turkey also continues to target Sinjar, a strategic crossing point between Qandil and Rojava, which it regularly strikes with drones and aircraft. On the 13th, an air strike hit a building of the Municipal Council of Sinuni, killing a 12-year-old child and injuring 6 people. Another security source mentioned “two dead”, assuring that the victims were both civilians – the young child and his grandfather (RojInfo) – killed in a base of the Ezidikhan, a protection force of the Yazidi minority, close to the PKK. According to Turkish state television TRT, the strike, using “armed drones”, hit a building where “high-level PKK cadres” were holding a meeting, and “neutralised” six of them. Asked by AFP, the Turkish Defence Ministry refused to confirm the information. Last month, because of fighting between the Iraqi army and Yezidis close to the PKK, more than 10,000 people had to flee Sinjar (AFP). The conflict is centred around the local “autonomous administration” established by the pro-PKK Yezidis on the model of Rojava, and which neither Baghdad nor Erbil recognise.
On the 17th, on the Iranian border, a Turkish drone targeted a civilian vehicle carrying 5 people, including 2 women, between Khanaqin and Kalar. Four of the passengers were killed, the 5th seriously injured (a later AFP report mentions 3 dead and one injured). Ankara claimed to have targeted PKK members, but it later turned out that they were Syrian Kurds, including Farhad Shabli, Deputy Vice-President of the Executive Council of the Rojava Autonomous Administration (AANES). Denouncing the attack, Syrian Kurdish officials said that Mr Shabli had come to the Kurdistan Region for medical treatment (AFP).
On the 20th, a Turkish drone struck Sindjar again, targeting an Autonomous Administration building evacuated a few hours earlier (WKI). On the 22nd, the co-chairman of the Sinunî People’s Assembly, Xwedêda Ilyas, told RojNews that the Yezidis would not give in: “Our will is stronger than their attacks, we will continue our activities”. He also justified the creation of the local autonomous administration by the abandonment that the Yezidis suffered in the face of the advance of ISIS in 2014: “The forces that were supposed to protect us in 2014 fled, leaving our people alone [...]. It was obvious that they could no longer govern Shengal [the Kurdish name for Sinjar]”. He also accused the Iraqi government of failing to take responsibility for protecting its citizens from Turkish attacks.
Ankara is also conducting a campaign of targeted assassinations based on the presence in Iraqi Kurdistan of its MIT (intelligence service) agents. On the 24th, the Turkish state agency Anatolia announced the elimination of a PKK commander in Suleimaniyeh, without giving any details (Rûdaw).
Finally, it should be recalled that the jihadist organisation ISIS continues its terrorist activities, especially in the disputed territories between Baghdad and Erbil, taking advantage of the lack of coordination between the Iraqi military and the Peshmerga. The jihadists kidnap and murder farmers or set fire to fields. This is particularly the case in the Kirkuk region, where on the 10th, the security forces announced the arrest of 4 jihadists, including one responsible for atrocities during the Yezidi genocide.
While the security problem in the disputed territories lies mainly in the lack of coordination between Kurdish and Iraqi troops, it is worth noting that on the 13th, the acting governor of Kirkuk province, Rakan Al-Jabouri, indicated in an interview that representatives of the Turkmen and Arab communities were opposed to the establishment of a “Coordination Centre” between peshmerga and Iraqi forces in the province. The following week, a peshmerga delegation went to Baghdad in a new attempt to implement the project of a joint Iraqi-Kurdish “20th Division”, which has so far remained unimplemented despite the agreement reached last year. On the 25th, Shakhawan Abdullah (KDP), Deputy Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, said that the administrative procedures for the creation of this force “have been completed” and that MPs are now working to “fulfil the obligations of the federal government as soon as possible”.
On the 14th, a joint operation by Iraqi forces and the anti-ISIS coalition began on Mount Qara Chokh, near Makhmur. This area, which had been surrounded by the Iraqi army for two months, had become a sanctuary for ISIS jihadists. The result of the operation, which lasted all day, has not been announced. On the 17th, a jihadist attack in Tuz Khurmatu killed 1 Iraqi soldier and wounded 3 others. On the same day, another jihadist leader arrested in Kirkuk province confessed to executing 17 peshmerga captured in 2016... DNA tests will be used on the mass grave he indicated to verify his claims.
In addition, the climatic and health situation remains worrying in Kurdistan and throughout Northern Iraq. The drought is such that, near Mosul, the drop in the level of the Kemune reservoir has caused a 3,000-year-old Mitannian city to re-emerge. The city had been drowned when the reservoir was filled in 1980. In addition, Iraq remains prey to Congo fever, a haemorrhagic fever transmitted by cattle, which has killed 27 people since January, including one in Kurdistan. But it is above all cholera that is worrying, even if it has not yet caused any deaths. Of the 13 cases reported in Iraq, 10 are from Suleimaniyeh and there are 56 suspected cases there. Sabah Hawrami, the province’s Director General of Health, said on the 19th that in less than a week “About 4,000 cases of diarrhoea and vomiting [had] been registered in Suleimaniyeh hospitals”. In Sinjar, where the health sector, like all public services, remains in a state of disarray, dozens of cases of diarrhoea have been reported among young children (WKI). On the 26th, cholera claimed its first death in Iraq, in Kirkuk (AFP). It is likely that the drought, which limits access to drinking water and increases pollution, plays a role in this resurgence.
The economic situation in Iran continues to deteriorate, hitting hard not only the poorest, but now also the middle class. Impoverishment has become widespread. The currency has collapsed to its lowest value ever recorded: on the 12th, it was trading at 332,000 rials to the dollar, five times more than in 2018; in 2015, when the nuclear deal was reached, it was 32,000 rials... (AP) At the end of March, annual inflation reached 40.1% (compared to 36.4% a year earlier) and unemployment 9.2%, figures that many economists say are underestimated. The government of the ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi has aggravated the problems of survival of Iranians by decreeing in May the abolition of subsidies on several basic food products, including flour, thus multiplying the price of pasta and especially bread, last resort of the poorest. Demonstrations against the high cost of living have become almost daily. An interviewee, head of a family, testifies to his concern about the future: “If our washing machine broke down, I would have to pay two months’ income to replace it” (Le Monde).
These economic difficulties come at a time of already difficult circumstances, with the drought particularly severe in the centre of the country. The drought sparked protests last November that were met with violent repression, and farmers interviewed by Radio Farda this month said the situation had not improved at all. The water shortage is due to reduced rainfall and drought, but also to years of poor management...
On 23 May, the collapse of a ten-storey building in Abadan (Khuzestan) belonging to a prominent person close to the government killed at least 33 people. By 6 June, the death toll had risen to 41. This disaster crystallised general anger against the authorities, provoking first in Khuzestan, then throughout the country, daily demonstrations against their incompetence and corruption. After calling for the prosecution and punishment of those responsible, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a televised statement blamed the protests on “Iran’s enemies”: “Today, [he said], our enemies’ greatest hope for dealing a blow to the country lies in the popular protests” (The Guardian).
This accusation has only strengthened protests whose slogans now link themes related to daily needs, such as the price of basic products, bread, sugar, eggs, meat... and the corruption of the regime. It is because those close to the government continue to get richer, sometimes even insolently, while the vast majority of Iranians sink into misery. When, at the beginning of the month, pensioners demonstrated for two days in more than a dozen cities to demand an increase in their pensions, the government pledged a 60% increase, but the demonstrators said it was not enough and continued to chant: “Our expenses are in dollars, our income in rials”. They questioned Iran’s regional policy with: “Leave Palestine alone, think of us”, ridiculed Khamenei’s “enemy” speech with: “They lie to us saying America is our enemy, [but] our real enemy is here”, and radically challenged the government with: “Down with the Islamic Republic” or (even more directly): “Death to Raisi” (Farda). Demonstrations by pensioners continued throughout the month in several Iranian cities, including Kermanshah, Arak, Rasht, Khorramabad, Sari, Dorud and Zanjan (NCRI).
The stalemate in the nuclear negotiations does not augur well for a rapid lifting of US sanctions, especially as Iran is taking advantage of the stalemate to accelerate its enrichment programme. According to experts, the country could already start building a bomb if it so decides. On the 8th, thirty states sitting on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) adopted a severe resolution submitted by the United States and Europeans warning Tehran, whose lack of cooperation it condemned. In particular, the signatories criticise Iran for failing to provide a “technically credible” explanation for the presence of traces of enriched uranium found at three undeclared sites.
Tehran denounced the vote of the resolution as “a political, incorrect and unconstructive act”, “based [...] on false information fabricated by the Zionist regime [Israel]”, and in retaliation announced that it would remove 27 of the surveillance cameras installed when the treaty was signed in 2015 from its nuclear sites. The IAEA condemned this decision on the 9th while Berlin, London and Paris called on Iran in a joint statement to “stop the nuclear escalation” and “urgently accept now the deal on the table” since March. In addition to the deactivation of the cameras, Iran informed the IAEA of the inauguration of two new centrifuge cascades at the Natanz site. The agency still retains 40 cameras at the site, but its Director General, Rafael Grossi, said this led to “less transparency, more doubt”. In response, the Iranian President said: “We will not back down”.
However, at the end of his surprise visit to Tehran on 25 June, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, declared alongside his Iranian counterpart that the talks could resume soon (Reuters). This is because, given the risk of oil shortages caused by the Ukrainian conflict and the dramatic situation of the Iranian economy, the two parties could accept compromises...
Internally, of the many protests this month, it was the teachers’ movement and the repression it provoked that had the most resonance on social media. This movement has spread throughout the country, but has been particularly active in Kurdistan, where wage demands have been compounded by those related to cultural repression. At the end of May, a state television station tried to find external causes for the movement by linking it to two French teachers arrested during their visit to Iran, Cécile Kohler and her companion, Jacques Paris. It should be noted that, at the end of June, Anisha Asadollahi and her husband Keyvan Mohtadi, arrested on 9 May after having served as interpreters for the two French visitors, were still in prison. Asadollahi’s mother took direct aim at the authorities in a video posted online in which she said: “You arrested the brightest people in the country to make up for your own ineptitude and incompetence”.
According to HRANA, quoting the Kurdpa news agency, teacher unionist Majid Karimi was arrested on 31 May and held incommunicado when he and several others came to the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence office to ask about another union activist, Masoud Farhikhteh, who had previously been arrested. On 8 June, teachers in Kermanshah protested against the arrests and, concerned about the health of their detained colleagues, asked them to stop their hunger strike. On 10 June, it was reported that Eskandar Lotfi, a teacher from Mariwan arrested on 30 May, had been transferred to an unknown location. He had been on hunger strike since his arrest to protest against attempts by interrogators to extract a confession from him. On the 15th, security forces arrested 10 teacher trade-unionists in Saqqez and Divandarreh (Kordestan) and transferred them to an unknown location. On the same day, it was reported that Mohammad-Reza Moradi, one of the leaders of the Kurdistan Teachers’ Association in Sanandaj, had been arrested the previous evening at his home (Hengaw).
On the call of the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Professional Associations, teachers, both working and retired, gathered across the country to protest against the widespread arrests of teachers. However, it turned out that the arrests in Kurdistan were only the beginning of a wave of repression that spread across the country the next day.
Among the protesters’ demands are the immediate release of detained teachers, the implementation of the “job classification plan” adopted by the Iranian Parliament, the reduction of the pension gap, free education for students and a maximum number of 16 students per class.
Prior to the demonstrations, security forces attempted to intimidate teachers from participating, and numerous preventive arrests were made. The rallies themselves were heavily repressed. In Tehran, security forces prevented protesters from gathering near the parliament. In Saqqez and Sanandaj, large numbers of plainclothes security officers were deployed. On the 17th, the HRANA website published a list of 51 arrested teachers whose identities it was able to verify (https://www.en-hrana.org/mass-arrests-of-teachers-and-teacher-union-activists-in-cities-of-iran/). The list includes 21 arrests in Saqqez alone, 3 arrests in each of Mariwan, Divandarreh and Sanandaj, and one in Delfan, Lorestan. On the 18th, 10 teachers imprisoned during the demonstrations went on hunger strike in Saqqez to protest against their detention. On the 20th, security forces arrested teacher unionist Reza Tahmasbi without showing a warrant and held him incommunicado (HRANA).
On the 21st, the Washington Kurdish Institute (WKI) published a list of Kurdish activists and teachers arrested in Saqqez, Urmia, Sanandaj (Sena) and Kermanshah for demonstrating against their deteriorating living conditions. They include Arshak Gonbadi in Urmia, Yousif Farjan, Ramazan Farjam and Farzad Hajizadeh in Mako, and Mohammed Muradi in Sanandaj. Many of the arrested teachers have gone on hunger strike. In addition, the regime has threatened to arrest those who post critical texts on social media.
On the 23rd, HRANA published a list of at least 230 teachers arrested since the beginning of May, plus 23 summoned by the authorities, with the list of those whose identity it was able to confirm (https://www.en-hrana.org/iranian-teachers-protests-update-230-arrests-during-last-two-months/). The organisation also published information on the situation of Zahra Mohammadi, a young Kurdish teacher from the Nojîn association who is serving a five-year sentence in Sanandaj prison for “organising people to disrupt national security”. According to HRANA, despite her intestinal problems, Mohammadi, who is incarcerated in the wing for violent crimes, is still being denied proper care and release on medical grounds.
On the other hand, the Iranian judicial system continues to be marked by death sentences and inhumane punishments. According to the Norwegian based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), the judiciary executed 12 prisoners from the Baluchi community, 11 men and one woman, by hanging in Zahedan prison on the morning of the 6th. The latter had been convicted of the murder of her husband. Six of the men were involved in drug trafficking, and five were also convicted of murder. According to IHR, Baloch prisoners accounted for 21% of the 2021 executions, although they represent only 2 to 6% of the population. All opposition NGOs make a similar observation for all ethnic minorities in Iran, be it Baluchis, Kurds or Arabs. For Amnesty International, “The death penalty has been used disproportionately against members of ethnic minorities accused of vaguely worded offences such as ‘enmity against God’”. Furthermore, IHR estimates that the number of executions in 2021 increased by 25% compared to 2020 (AFP). According to HRANA, two more prisoners were executed on the 8th in Ilam and Khalkhal prisons, and on the 9th in Amol and Kermanshah prisons, two more prisoners were hanged for murder. None of these executions were officially announced, as were the majority of those carried out in the country. On the 13th, HRANA reported further executions in Kermanshah, Gorgan and Shiraz, a total of 9 hangings from the 6th to the 12th, including a Baluchi hanged in Gorgan on the 12th in Shiraz for a drug-related offence. Finally, on the 20th, political prisoner Firooz Musaloo was executed in Urmia prison. He had been sentenced to death for “enmity with God” (Moharebeh) and “membership of an anti-regime political party” (HRANA).
On the 8th, the Kurdish Human Rights Network (KHRN) reported the transfer of 8 prisoners from Tehran to another prison for the amputation of their fingers. The KHRN had previously reported the transfer of 3 prisoners from Urmia to Tehran to undergo this punishment, to which 5 others were also sentenced. According to messages circulating on social networks, 1 prisoner from Kermanshah prison transferred to Evin, near Tehran, has already undergone the sentence. In interviews with KHRN, the families of some of the prisoners have called for the immediate intervention of international human rights organisations and the UN Human Rights Council to prevent the amputations (KHRN).
In a joint statement, the Washington-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center (ABC), which campaigns for human rights in Iran, and the KHRN said they were “particularly concerned by credible reports that a machine recently installed in a room of Tehran’s Evin prison clinic has been used to perform at least one amputation in recent days” (AFP). Images of a machine with a rotating blade have been appearing on social networks for several weeks. On the 22nd, the United Nations Office for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a statement urging Iran to desist from carrying out this punishment. According to OHCHR spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani, a first attempt to transfer the men took place on 11 June, but was halted due to resistance from fellow prisoners (UN News). Iran is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which prohibits “torture” or “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” (Article 7) such as amputation, but Iran’s Shariah-based Penal Code provides for amputation for crimes such as repeat theft. The ABC says it has recorded at least 356 sentences of amputation since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, but stresses that the total is probably much higher (AFP).
Other arrests and convictions in Kurdistan earlier this month include those carried out in Kamyaran, Sadiq Mosabah (Bokan) and Majeed Karimi (Sanandaj). Several Kakai Kurds were also arrested in Sahneh (WKI). On the 27th, 4 citizens of Oshnavieh were arrested without warrant and held incommunicado. The next day, the Court of Appeal upheld a 5-year prison sentence on Mohammad-Khaled Hamzehpour, a resident of Oshnavieh, along with 4 others, for “belonging to an anti-regime group” (HRANA).
In addition, 8 environmental activists from the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation arrested in 2018 and charged with espionage remain in prison. One member of the group, Kavus Seyed-Emami, died in custody under suspicious circumstances shortly after the arrest. On 3 June, more than 50 environmentalists wrote an open letter to the Iranian authorities demanding their release. Among the signatories is the renowned British anthropologist Jane Goodall. The head of the United Nations Environment Programme, Inger Andersen, made a separate appeal for the release of the environmentalists on the 4th (Farda).
The situation in prisons remains marked by injustice, violations of prison rules and precariousness, particularly for prisoners with health problems, who are frequently denied treatment. For example, Kamal Sharifi, in his 14th year of detention out of the 30 he has to serve in Minab prison, sent to hospital after a heart attack, was sent back to prison before his treatment was completed. Barely able to walk, he is kept in the violent prisoners’ wing. Sharifi was convicted in 1998 for supporting the PDKI (HRANA).
On the 22nd, Kurdish political prisoner Keyvan Rashozadeh, who had been on hunger strike in Urmia prison since the 13th, was put in solitary confinement. Faced with the authorities’ refusal to grant him provisional freedom, Rashozadeh had started his protest by refusing to drink and sewing his lips together. Arrested along with 4 others in October 2019 and held incommunicado without contact with his family for interrogation, he was later sentenced to 7.5 years in prison for belonging to the Komala (KHRA).
On the 25th, Saada Khedirzadeh, a Kurdish prisoner who had just given birth by caesarean section, was returned to her cell in Urmia prison before her recovery was complete. Khedirzadeh had been arrested in Piranshahr in October 2021. Suffering from kidney, heart and lumbar disc problems, she remained on hunger strike for 11 days earlier this month to protest against the lack of treatment. She called off the hunger strike when she was promised parole, but so far the Mahabad court has denied her parole...
Finally, Iran seems to continue its terrorist activities abroad. On 6 June, Akbar Safar Almas, a member of a Kurdish exile organisation, was injured by a bomb in Erbil. Although the attack has not been claimed, the Iranian regime remains the prime suspect because of its history of assassinating dissidents in Iraqi Kurdistan.
On 28 June, the Turkish President lifted the veto on NATO membership for Sweden and Finland that he had held since mid-May. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters he was “delighted” with an agreement that addresses “Turkey’s concerns about arms exports and the fight against terrorism”, and US President Joe Biden, in a statement issued by the White House, “congratulated Turkey, Finland and Sweden” on the signing of the agreement (AFP).
Turkey had been blocking the two Nordic countries’ membership of the Atlantic Alliance for months, accusing them of harbouring PKK militants as well as supporters of the preacher Fethullah Gülen, named by the Turkish President as the inspiration behind the failed coup of July 2016. Moreover, the strong man of Ankara used the issue of accession as a means of pressure to obtain the lifting of the arms export blockades decided against it by Stockholm after the Turkish military intervention in northern Syria in October 2019. In a statement, the Turkish presidency said: “Turkey got what it wanted”. It seems that, on the side of Washington, Ankara still has to negotiate to hope to obtain some concessions on the F-16 aircraft, whose sale Washington suspended after Turkey bought the Russian S-400 defence system... What Ankara has obtained, in all likelihood, are concessions from Finland – and above all from Sweden – on the Kurds. And perhaps, beyond these two countries, of Europe?
The two most worrying points are Europe’s relations with Rojava and the extraditions of Kurdish exiles. On this second point, Ankara did not waste time: the day after the agreement, Turkey asked Sweden and Finland to extradite 33 people, including 17 Kurdish militants (6 in Finland and 11 in Sweden). If they are indeed extradited, their fate is clear: they will be tried for terrorism (France Info). Given the way terrorism is defined in Turkey, and after life sentences on empty cases like that of Osman Kavala or Pınar Selek, there is real cause for concern. It is especially in Sweden, which has at least 100,000 Kurdish refugees and 8 MPs of Kurdish origin, that the concern is felt.
On the issue of relations with Rojava, there is also much to be bitter about. The Kurdish fighters of the PYD, forming the backbone of the Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), have served and are still serving as ground troops in the anti-ISIS Coalition, a US-led offshoot of NATO in which most Western countries are present. They have given in this fight 11,000 dead and up to 20,000 wounded, now crippled. For the time being, neither the United States nor its Russian adversary seem to want to give the Turkish army a free hand to attack them again this time. But the position of the PYD, and more broadly of Rojava and the self-management experiment of the Autonomous Administration of North-East Syria (AANES), is becoming even more precarious, between Damascus’ desire in the south to regain full control of its territories and the implacable hostility of Turkey’s neighbour in the north. The Rojava fighters seem more than ever to be sitting on an ejector seat...
On the issue of extraditions, the question is also what will be the medium-term impact of the concessions made to Mr Erdoğan. Will he be satisfied with a symbolic victory vis-à-vis his domestic opinion?
In order to conclude the accession agreement, a compromise had to be found that would allow Erdoğan to score the diplomatic victory he needed vis-à-vis his public, without endangering human rights in Sweden and Finland... Diplomats and NATO officials worked hard to come up with the 10-point tripartite (Turkey-Sweden-Finland) agreement published just before the announcement of the accession agreement, and which purports to do this. Point 8 is the most sensitive: Sweden and Finland commit themselves “to deal promptly and thoroughly with pending requests for expulsion or extradition of terrorist suspects from Turkey”. The wording is vague, which is double-edged. It can be interpreted as allowing the judiciary to continue to function independently, but the very fact that it can be interpreted means that a new Swedish government, for example, could change its impact. It is not only the Swedish Kurds who are concerned about the long-term consequences of the agreement. The Swedish left-wing parties have also expressed their concern.
“This is a black day in Swedish political history”, said Amineh Kakabaveh, an independent Swedish leftist MP and former Kurdish peshmerga in Iran: “We are negotiating with a regime that does not respect freedom of expression or the rights of minority groups”, she told SVT Nyheter TV. She also said she hopes the Left Party and the Greens will join her in pressuring the Swedish government over its concessions to Turkey: “It’s not just about the Kurds, it’s about Sweden not bowing to a regime like Erdoğan’s”, she said (Politico).
We remember the odyssey of Behrouz Boochani, the Kurdish journalist from Iran who received a 2019 literary award for his book No Friend But The Mountains. After arriving by boat in 2013 in Australian waters, he was intercepted before he could set foot on Australian soil and sent to an Australian offshore immigration centre on Manus Island, on the other side of Papua New Guinea, well north of it. He stayed there for six years in appalling conditions before his book, written on his mobile phone and sent paragraph by paragraph to a friend by text message, was granted refugee status in New Zealand.
Canberra’s policy was to discourage illegal immigrants from arriving by boat in Australia. Those who did arrive were sent to detention centres in Manus or the small eastern state of Nauru. Once there, they were given an identification number and told they could not settle permanently in Australia. Nick McKim, an Australian Green Party senator who visited Manus five times before finally being refused entry, is blunt about the practice: “I have no hesitation in describing what happened in those camps as torture”. He said the authorities “could never have afforded such conditions if those camps had been in Australia”.
After years of this policy, which resulted in 14 detainee deaths, a series of suicide attempts, some by young migrants as young as five, and at least six referrals to the International Criminal Court, the Australian scheme has been dismantled. As of last month, around 100 people remained in detention on Nauru. Yet Britain has now taken up the concept. After seeking advice from a series of Australian political strategists, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has put in place a plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, more than 6,000 kilometres from London. Johnson echoed Canberra’s arguments that the practice would “deter migrants”.
Boochani reacted by calling from New Zealand on the British people to fight against this project that aims at “copying Australia’s extremely dehumanising asylum policies”, which another Sudanese migrant said had “not worked”. Indeed, figures show that the number of boat arrivals has risen steadily during the implementation of these deportation measures: so much for the deterrent effect.
Another Kurdish migrant, Barham Hama Ali, from Iraq, was to be among the first to be sent back from London to Kigali on 14 June. He told AFP that he was transferred shortly after his arrival on 23 May to a detention centre near Heathrow airport, where he was given a “ticket to Rwanda”. On 14 May, he was taken to a military base: “There were seven of us migrants, each of us was escorted by four guards. They put us on the plane by force”, he says. “Apart from me, there was another Kurd from Suleimaniyeh, two Kurds from Iran, an Iranian, a Vietnamese and an Albanian”...
But the specially chartered plane will not take off: the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) blocked the deportations just a few hours before the scheduled take-off time, leaving the plane grounded. Ali was taken back to the detention centre... The ECHR ruled that the British judiciary should examine in detail the legality of the scheme, which should be done in July. The UK government said it was determined to pursue its strategy.
Other migrants from Kurdistan are also facing such inhumane and illegal refoulement practices. While Ukrainian refugees are immediately granted temporary residence permits, the plight of non-European migrants still stranded at the Belarus-Poland border has largely gone under the radar. Yet Human Rights Watch continues to warn about their situation: “The illegal deportations of migrants to Belarus and their subsequent mistreatment there stand in stark contrast to Poland’s open-door policy for people fleeing the war in Ukraine”, the NGO published on 7 June.
Several testimonies confirm these practices: “When the [Polish] border guards came, we asked for asylum and showed them papers where we had written ‘asylum’ in Polish and English”, explained a 23-year-old Kurd from Iraq. “They told us: ‘You don’t need these papers’ and threw them away”. On two occasions, [migrants testify], Polish border guards hit them with batons or kicked them and pushed them around before forcing them back to the Belarusian side... An Iranian gay migrant fearing for his life if returned to his country was refused asylum forms, and when he refused to sign the document agreeing to be sent back to Belarus, he was beaten up and thrown back across the wire. Some testify that even when they were able to obtain asylum papers from Polish volunteers, the border guards would confiscate them before deporting them anyway. According to another witness, when he asked for his passport back, he was beaten with a baton. Finally, there are reports of similar behaviour by Lithuanian guards. In addition, charges of rape have been brought against Belarusian border guards...
While Polish volunteers working on the Polish-Ukrainian border are being hailed as “heroes”, at least five activists have been prosecuted for providing humanitarian aid to stranded migrants and asylum seekers from the Middle East, Asia and Africa at the Polish border with Belarus. They face up to eight years in prison for “organising illegal immigration”.
