Medya News Audio Articles

Nagihan Akarsel, a Kurdish scholar, activist, journalist and co-founder of the feminist Jineology Research Centre, was shot dead earlier this week in an armed attack in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan. Her death, which recalls previous extrajudicial killings of Kurdish women’s activists by the Turkish intelligence services, has sparked protests in Kurdistan and around the world. Here, her friend and...

"It is a painful reality that the government calling itself ‘autonomous’ is in fact fully dependent on Iran and Turkey. In other words: Kurd-murdering dictatorial states define the Kurdistan region’s economic and security situation, and Kurdish leaders let it happen and don’t protect their people because they are more dedicated to protecting their own financial interests."

The global collective uprising following the Jîna Amini-case carries within it the seeds of something new, a solidarity that extends beyond self-interest, in which women across different backgrounds, ethnicities and borders are empowered to make a common cause to improve women's situation.

“Unfortunately, the resulting report clearly illustrates “the world is facing a wave of autocratization. Powerful autocratic states, former democracies, and political movements within democracies increasingly present ideological challenges to the principles of democratic governance”. Turkey sticks out as a poster-boy example of this negative phenomenon.”

"In other words, one can use democratic means to achieve autocracy. Analyzing Erdoğan’s imaginary train journey, one must conclude that the Turkish leader never intended to reach democracy. Indeed, now that he largely has achieved his actual goal of autocracy, he has jumped off the train!"

“That little urchin with the gold-red hair, whom I have just watched toddling past my house, she shall not be lopped and lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut short like a convict's; no, all the kingdoms of the earth shall be hacked about and mutilated to suit her. She is the human and sacred image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall; the pillars of society shall...

'Given his lack of options, Erdoğan may pretend to swallow Putin’s bait. Nevertheless, Putin’s strategy bluntly underestimates the vigilance, the Kurdish people’s historical consciousness of the right to self-determination and war-hardened capacity to survive a prolonged struggle. If Putin’s “wisdom” were of any good in resolving national problems, it should have already guided the Kremlin to pick...

"KOBANÊ shows how fast the advance of Daesh was suddenly going, how quickly decisions had to be made about how to defend the city, how Turkey’s support for Daesh wasn’t superficial, but really impacted the battle. How brave individual fighters were and how that bravery strengthened the whole fighting force of the YPG and YPJ. The sacrifices, the destruction, the absolute determination not to give...

'The greatest fear of the Turkish state is that the Kurds should achieve power in the political arena. The only thing they want is to leave the Kurds no option but the armed struggle. The Kurds keep calling for a political solution to extricate themselves from this position they have been forced into, but the administration is pressing for unconditional surrender, while the Kurds unconditionally r...

"Though it has been ten years since the establishment of self-rule in the regions of North and East Syria, the first university of the Autonomous Administration was founded only seven years ago; seven years marred by Turkish invasion and threats, continuous ISIS attacks and poor economic conditions. The road ahead for the administration remains full of challenges."

'The murder of Musa Anter is symbolic of the ongoing effort by the state to annihilate the Kurdish movement, Kurdish culture, the Kurdish language and the whole Kurdish community in Turkey by murder, oppression, prosecution, disenfranchisement and forced assimilation, and the brutal suppression of the legitimate armed insurgency against it. An attempted genocide, you could argue. When the case end...

Matt Broomfield reflects on the legacy of Queen Elizabeth in regards to how British people are viewed in the Middle East and comments on how the world will not forget the history of empire and colonialism quickly.

"Leyla Zana was the first in a long line of Kurdish women jailed by the Turkish state for their involvement in the Kurdish political struggle for justice and equality, in the early 1990s, after she spoke Kurdish when she took her parliamentary oath, wearing a hairband in the Kurdish colours: green, red and yellow. While she was deservedly awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament in 19...

In her latest column for MedyaNews, Fréderike Geerdink compares and contrasts the situations of two stateless communities, the Tamils and the Kurds, and argues against laying down arms before a political settlement is reached.

“The cruel realities of life under Turkey’s authoritarian government continue to bite, both in Turkey itself and in the areas under Turkish military attack. Like all authoritarian regimes, Turkey’s ruling class pursues popular support and working-class division through the promotion of virulent racism. But Turkey is far from unique. Both within countries and in international relations, there is a...

Journalist Fréderike Geerdink looks at the SDF's armed defence of its people against Turkish attacks in Syria, equating their principled stance and clear vision with that of the unarmed political party HDP.

We see the staged handshakes in front of national flags, and read the official communiqués, but the life and death deals made behind closed doors we can only guess at. What was negotiated between Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan? How have the dynamics been impacted by the war in Ukraine? And what possibilities may have been opened for cooperation between Erdoğan and Bashar al-Assad? Circums...

"Little did the visitors know that the excursion they had planned on this fateful Wednesday in the Duhok Governorate of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, would turn into a picnic of death. Out of nowhere, the peace was suddenly shattered by the sound of explosions in the background and the calm transformed into a nightmarish chaos when unsuspecting people suddenly found themselves being attacked by Tu...

As Turkish invasion threats continue to cast their shadow over northern Syria, and pundits dissect the latest statements to speculate on whether either the United States or Russia will do a deal to stand aside and let Turkish ground forces go in; as Turkish forces continue to pound the mountains of northern Iraq, and the PKK reports plans by the dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) to provide...

“For everyone who cares about the Kurds, this is a worrying time, but how much more worrying for those who expect their homes and their hard-won freedoms to come under violent attack at any moment. The situation cannot be made any easier by the knowledge that most of the world seems supremely indifferent to their plight – even to its potential world-changing importance.”

-"For Erdoğan, attacking the Kurds has become synonymous with building popular support, and, as the next election looms, his foreign policy is being increasingly driven by the domestic agenda."

-The extraordinary swing of support behind NATO in western countries is based around a carefully constructed image of NATO as standing up for a people under attack, and as preventing capitulation to bully-boy tactics. It was an image that never had any substance, but now Turkey is very publicly tearing it to shreds.

Sarah Glynn looks at the EU Conference on supporting Syria, noting the presence of Turkey, Iran and the US, all party to Syria's troubles, and the absence of AANES, the only ones trying to build a real democracy there.

The most alarming military developments this week were the intensified attacks on the Yazidis in Şengal (Sinjar), in northwest Iraq. These were carried out by the Iraqi army, but it is Turkey that is most insistent on destroying Yazidi autonomy, and Turkey was behind the scenes, pulling strings.

Sarah Glynn's weekly news review: "For those challenging Turkish aggression, opportunities for high level diplomacy are distinctly limited, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t get international support, nor that that support doesn’t matter."