Medya News Audio Articles

In Lavrio camp, near Athens, Kurdish refugees had established a system of autonomous organisation inspired by the ideas of Abdullah Öcalan. Beginning with the final clearance of the camp, under Turkish pressure, Sarah Glynn’s weekly news review looks at the many ways Kurds are being oppressed in different parts of Kurdistan, often – but by no means only – by the Turkish government.

As journalist Merdan Yanardağ is imprisoned for criticising the illegal isolation of Abdullah Öcalan, Sarah Glynn examines the human rights issues concerning Öcalan’s incarceration, and how the brutal regime of his İmralı Island prison has been used as a model for an increasingly punitive and sadistic Turkish Legal system. Every opportunity is also being taken to try and force other countries to s...

In a world plagued by conflicts and political unrest, the choices made by individuals to join armed movements often spark curiosity and controversy. Fréderike Geerdink delves into the lives and motivations of German individuals who have become members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), shedding light on their stories and challenging the common narrative that portrays them as deceived. Instead,...

Turkey carries out targeted assassinations and promotes the revival of ISIS. In Russian-sponsored talks, the misrepresentation of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria allows regional powers to bond over calls for its destruction. Turkey’s citizens face a bleak economic future. Disputes over oil exports and party rivalry impact the Kurdistan Regional Government’s autonomy. And Iran...

Several Kurds have told me that it’s not really a choice. It’s a necessity to fight against oppression, to defend the life of yourself, your family, your people. Self-defence is, you could say, a reflex inextricably tied to being alive. Kurds, and other oppressed nations, know from a very young age on that their lives are constantly threatened, and resistance has become part of their existence. Be...

A general problem is undoubtedly to win voters for left-of-centre politics in a society with a conservative basic attitude. This actually requires very long-term strategies. Jumping on conservative issues in the short term, as the CHP [Republican People's Party] candidate did before the run-off election, is risky. On the one hand, it reinforces and confirms conservative positions. On the other han...

We are currently in the worst situation since ISIS attacked, facing the biggest danger since then. Since then, more than ten Turkish airstrikes have hit the camp. And yet neither Iraqi government, nor KRG, nor the UN condemned these attacks. They say nothing about this. The Iraqi government approaches this place as though there is a danger from the PKK, but the real danger is from Turkish airstrik...

Medya News columnist Fréderike Geerdink uses the youths in Istanbul who recently got in trouble for dancing to Kurdish music as a starting point for looking at the stage of Turkish politics and the various "dancers".

Erdoğan boasts of his independence from the United States and portrays his rival as in America’s pocket, but it is America’s world-wide fight against communism and socialism and their readiness to resort to any means in order to make the world safe for US capitalism that has made space for the growth of neo-fascism and intolerant religious extremism. Erdoğan owes his position to America and her al...

Turkey has experienced all kinds of rule in its hundred-year history. The only thing that has not been tried is a consistent democracy. Now and in coming years, Turkey must overcome its fears and dare to be democratic.

Turkish ethnic nationalism has been a core belief of the Turkish Republic throughout its century-old existence. It has increasingly been defined against a Kurdish “other” that refuses to deny Kurdishness and assimilate into a monolithic Turkish identity. Since Erdoğan ended peace talks with the PKK and, following the 2015 election, was forced to rely on the support of the far-right Nationalist Mov...

Citizens living abroad, who could play a key role in Turkey's coming polls if the vote at home is close, have already started voting. Jürgen Klute looks at this and other aspects of the elections.

"Why should Erdogan suddenly follow democratic rules of the game when he has not done so far? Therefore Kurds must stand up as one and vote for the opposition – the Green Left Party / HDP." -Westrheim

Ertuğrul Kürkçü looks at Turkey's coming elections: "Peoples of Turkey stand on the verge of repelling the most perennial and comprehensive attempt at dictatorship in the history of Turkey."

Accompanied by stirring music, convoys of armed vehicles and police vans roar into the cities, and groups of fully armed soldiers make their way into the alleys and storm unmarked doorways. This is not the latest TV drama but the official film of the detention of 128 politicians and activists of the pro-Kurdish leftist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), now running under the banner of the Green Left...

Fréderike Geerdink looks at Turkey's coming elections in the light of of the historic resistance of the Kurds in conjunction with the spirit of the Gezi protests.

British anti-terror police found themselves in the headlines this week after using a controversial power to detain a French publisher at the British border and quiz him about his opposition to the French government. The case shone a spotlight on a little-known but widely-abused power, Schedule 7 of the Terror Act (2000), which equips British police with the ability to detain, search and interrogat...

Journalist Sedat Yılmaz urges "all press professional organisations to read Turkey’s press card regulation from the perspective of Kurdish journalists and put our 25 imprisoned colleagues on their agenda."

Fréderike Geerdink's latest column is out now! Her ruthless pursuit of the truth once again hits Medya News as she looks at the realities faced by Kurds in Turkey ahead of the country's critical elections.

Abdi commented that Erdoğan might do anything to get re-elected. One thing he is already doing is using the politicised judicial system to pursue his opponents. The case file for the closure of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has now been handed over to the court rapporteur to prepare his opinion before the judges make their decision. A ban would have to be supported by 10 of the 15 judges, an...

Germany’s history is supposed to have made German society sensitive to repression of minority groups and of freedom of speech, but only, it seems, for some groups and some ideas. Germany has a long record of repressing its Kurdish community – much the largest Kurdish community outside Kurdistan. They also attempt to silence Palestinian voices and even voices of Jews critical of Israel, demonstrati...

"Political change is needed. No Kurd is free until Öcalan is free," says Fréderike Geerdink in her latest article, focused on Abdullah Öcalan’s 'right to hope'.

"Much remains uncertain, but one thing is clear: the road to political reform in Turkey is long and arduous," says Matt Broomfield in his latest article looking at the upcoming Turkish elections.

The conditions of isolation in a quarter century of imprisonment have still not made it possible, philosophically, to destroy the bridges between Öcalan and his organisation.

"It is fundamentally right to insist on the observance of human rights, women's rights, minority rights, and climate protection measures. But if these demands are made out of an attitude of arrogance ... then European politicians will not find an audience with their African colleagues." - Jürgen Klute