Report
Mothers of Diyarbakir
A journey in the war-torn heartland of Turkish Kurdistan.
TEXT AND PHOTO By Shirvan Nuray Sarikaya
W e are now in Diyarbakir, in
southeastern Turkey – Ann-
Margarethe Livh, Swedish
politician; Naile Aras, also a Swedish
politican; and I, Shirvan Nuray Sarikaya,
a Kurdish-Swedish journalist and
photographer.
Ann-Margarethe and Naile have been
here many times before, working with
Kurdish women in the region, on political
assignments. But, this time the trip has
a more private agenda. They are here
to research for a book they are writing
on political awareness among Kurdish
women. I am here to take photos to go in
that book.
***
We wake up seven in the morning, with
the frightening roar of fighter jets flying
over us. Our hostess tells us that this is
simply a demonstration of who is in
power in Diyarbakir. At least that is the
version popular among the people here.
The official version is that the planes are
used to monitor the borders.
Military jets have had an important
role during the war between the Turkish
state and the Kurdish guerillas. A war,
like so many others, in which there is no
winner – only losers. The Turkish state
still refuses to call the conflict a war. For
the state, it is a fight against separatism.
Everyone else thinks a war is very much
going on.
War, insurgency or fight against
separatism. Some figures illustrate the
conflict. During the past thirty years,
about three thousand Kurdish villages
have been deserted by their population,
who have been forced to escape to the
cities to survive, thus, causing a swelling
population in Diyarbakir where poverty
is rapidly on the rise. In 1982, Diyarbakir
had a population of 200,000 and now it has
more than one million. An estimated total
of three million men, women and children
have been forced out of their homes, and
32 January/February 2010
Translated by Elisabeth Olin
of course, great social misery followed.
These days, just to survive, poor Kurdish
families are even selling their daughters.
A phenomenon, unheard of, even in the
recent past. In one out of three Kurdish
families, at least one member has died or
been wounded in the war.
The Kurdish population in Turkey
today is twelve million according to
the official records, and twenty million
according to the unofficial estimates.
Two-third of this is young people, and
98% is Muslim. The areas where the
Kurds mainly live are mostly poor and
underdeveloped. Apart from eastern and
south-eastern Turkey – their historical
homeland – Kurds live in big cities. For
example, it is estimated that there are
three million Kurds living in Istanbul, the
biggest city in Turkey.
Kurds have been denied their rights
ever since the foundation of the Turkish
republic in 1923. The word Kurdish was
Mothers of peace at the demonstration against
police abuses.
Independent World report
taboo for eighty years and the use of the
Kurdish language had been prohibited in
government offices and media. Recently,
the use of the Kurdish language has
been allowed, still Kurdish writers and
politicians face persecution, on a regular
basis.
Kurds in Turkey faced one of the most
brutal of oppressions, after the military
coup of 1980. Hundreds of Kurdish
people, among them a large number of
intellectuals, were tortured in Diyarbakir
– recognised as the capital of the Kurds
– prison.
Afterwards, many of them organised
in the PKK, the proscribed Kurdistan
Worker’s Party. In 1985, the PKK started
an armed struggle against the Turkish
republic. According to official estimate,
30,000 people died. Many, if not most, of
them were civilians. The Kurdish people
started their political struggle in the
beginning of the 1990s and established
political parties. But, these parties were
closed down, one by one, for being
separatists.
***
We have our breakfast and then set
out to visit the mothers of peace. This
movement was started by mothers of
Kurdish guerillas who had lost their sons
or daughters in the war. A middle-aged
woman opens the door to us when we
arrive to interview the five women, who
have agreed to tell us their stories.
We sit down on the couch, and the
eldest of the women starts to tell her
story. She has lost three sons during the
war, “One day my eldest son disappeared.
When we asked for him, we were told that
he had joined the guerilla. I was terrified,
and even more so, when his two younger
siblings followed his lead. None of them
returned home.”
The other women have similar stories.
They tell us that they have started this
movement, with an aim to stop the armed
Mothers of peace - mothers of Diyarbakir.

Independent World report January/February 2010 33

Mothers of peace at the demonstration against police abuses.

34 January/February 2010 Independent World report

Plain-clothes policemen at the demonstration.
conflict, “We must find a democratic way
to solve this conflict – a way that allows
us to be Kurds with pride, honour, with
our democratic rights. We tried to reach
out a hand to Turkish mothers as they
are also losing their sons. But, they were
submitted to heavy pressure from Turkish
nationalists, not to join hands with us. So
that initiative had to be abandoned, and
now we have to go on, alone.”
When we leave them, they give each
of us, a white scarf – a symbol of peace.
Next day, several women’s groups
organise a demonstration in central
Diyarbakir, against sexual harassment.
Kurdish women, who go to visit their
husband and sons in prisons and police
lockups, are often sexually abused by
soldiers and police officers.
The most recent incident that
triggered this protest is the case of a
member of Demokratik Toplum Partisi
(Democratic Society Party, DTP) – a young
Kurdish woman who was sexually abused
in her own home by two policemen. She
did not even dare to tell her family what
happened, but became so distraught that,
at one stage she had to visit a doctor.
When the doctor understood what had
happened, he reported the case to IHD – a
human rights advocacy organisation. IHD,
in turn, reported this to the police. At the
same time, her party comrades from DTP
urged women’s groups to organise the
demonstration.
Thousands of women, with their
husbands and sons, join the rally. I take
photos of the demonstrators, and notice
a number of policemen dressed in plain
clothes. When they discover that I am
taking their photos, they try to stop me,
coming towards me looking hostile. But
some of the women surround me, and
push the policemen back.
When the demonstration is over and
we go home, we discover that we are
being followed, watched. They continue
following us during the rest of our stay.
The third day, we meet Yurdusev
Özsökmenler, former mayor of the Baglar
municipality. Now she works with Gabb,
the association for municipalities in
eastern Turkey. She has been a human
rights activist from a very young age,
spending some years in prison. She does
not have much time to talk to us, but, we
are very much happy to meet her.
She is among those, who were arrested
and taken into prison on December 24,
2009.
After the visit, we meet the people at
the IHD office. IHD chairman, Muharrem
Ebey, shows us their new library. The
library holds the archive of twenty-one
years of IHD documentation on human
rights abuses. Thus, this library houses
an unique story of the Kurdish destiny,
consisting among other things, many
photos and testimonies of abuses never
shared with anyone else.
Muharrem Erbey is also among
those imprisoned on December 24,
2009. The police has also taken away all
the documentation and seized the only
Independent World report
computer of the library.
Muharrem Erbey is accused of
forbidden contacts with the PKK. He
might be imprisoned for six years.
During this trip, we meet many
members of the DTP. Some of them
belong to the younger generation of
Kurdish politicians – Firat Anli, Yuksel
Baran, Leyla Guven and others. We ask
them for their opinion on the situation of
Kurdish women today. It is obvious that
they want to see the end of armed conflict
between the Kurdish guerillas and the
Turkish army. It is also obvious that they
want to increase democratic movement
in this part of Turkey, with the help of the
European community. And they want to
see Turkey as a member of the European
Union.
All of them are now held in Diyarbarik
prison. I have spoken to their lawyers
for the updates – they are five inmates
in a cell for three, in the harsh Anatolian
winter, without any heating.
What does the Turkish government want –
the killing to go on, and both Turkish and
Kurdish young men and women be killed?
Democratic means of political struggle
has lost validity as democratically elected
politicians are being arrested and put
into prisons. The largest Kurdish party –
DTP – has just been declared illegal by the
Turkish constitutional court. �
Shirvan Nuray Sarikaya is a Stockholm-
based journalist and photographer.
January/February 2010 35