The United Nations, European Union are Complicit in the Human Rights Abuses Carried out by the Turkish State
The Kurdistan Human Rights Association: the attitudes and actions of the Turkish State through military attacks on Northern Kurdistan (Bakur) in its instigation of a brutal and renewed war against the Kurdish people of North Kurdistan, and it’s arrest and imprisonment of legitimate and elected representatives of the Kurdish people and its violations against human rights organisations have been carried out with transparency as the United Nations and the European Union watches on.
The Turkish State’s latest abuses contribute to its policies of ethnic cleansing and the erasure of the Kurdish identity, as well as renewing all out military warfare against the people of Kurdistan.
After its complete destruction of towns in the provinces of Cizre, Shirnak, Nuseybin, and Sur and the ongoing shelling and bombardment of Kurdish cities and town in Kurdistan, the Turkish State is now arresting parliamentarians, mayors of Kurdish provinces, political activists, members of pro-Kurdish rights organisations, and individuals who stand in opposition to the Turkish State’s policies in Northern Kurdistan.
At current, there are thousands of Kurdish individuals held in prisons of the Turkish State, with the latest being Selahattin Demirtas, Figen Yukskegdagh, Sebahat Tuncil, Leyla Domirak, Ahmad Turk, Goltan Keshanak and dozens of political activists who advocate for self-governance and autonomy for the people of Kurdistan.
This has come at a time when the United Nations, as observers of global political climates and as proponents of human rights worldwide, have witnessed the ongoing and deteriorating situation while remaining relatively quiet. The UN has not demonstrated a willingness to take any form of action and will likely remain unwilling even in the midst of the bold transparency of Turkey’s most recent violations. Similarly, the European Union, although it has direct links with the Turkish government and whose organisations and structure Turkey seeks to become a permanent member of has chosen to remain relatively quiet until today, where they finally voted to temporarily freeze talks of ascending Turkey’s candidacy status. This development, while important, has come perhaps as too little and too late.
Kurdistan Human Rights Association strongly condemns the ongoing and brutal violations of the human rights of the Kurdish people, and at the same time remains critical of the United Nations and European Union whose policies of silence and refusal to adequately speak up against the Turkish State’s ongoing abuses and planned and systematic massacring of the Kurdish people. If these two global organisations continue their silence amid mounting evidence of violations and military offences, they will be deemed complicit in these actions alongside Turkey and in opposition to the people of Kurdistan.
We must therefore ask that The United Nations, the European Union and the global rights movement impose restrictions on the powers of the Turkish State and take seriously the concerns and the suffering of the people of Kurdistan.
Kurdistan Human Rights Association
