The importance of the Kurdish struggle

[This is the edited text of a talk presented at the Melbourne launch of the pamphlet The Kurdish Freedom Struggle Today, September 29, 2015.]

This pamphlet aims to provide a short introduction to the Kurdish question for non-Kurdish readers in Australia. The focus is on Turkey and Rojava (the Kurdish majority liberated zone in northern Syria) where the struggle is being led by the revolutionary democratic wing of the Kurdish movement, i.e., the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Democratic Union Party (PYD). This is a mass struggle, involving hundreds of thousands, even millions of people.

Stop Turkey’s war on the Kurds

[Speech given at Kurdish solidarity rally in Melbourne, 12.09.15]

Regime killed peace process

Turkey is creeping towards civil war. This is a deliberate decision of the Erdogan regime. It killed the peace process with the PKK. At the start of this year agreements had been finalised to enable the guerillas to safely withdraw across the border to their camps in northern Iraq.

Government keeps PKK on terror list

[10.09.15]

On August 11, the Tony Abbott government re-listed the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as a terrorist organisation. This means it is illegal for Australian citizens to belong to it, actively support it or raise funds for it.