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#TwitterKurds will be holding our last and final mass Tweet on the Kurdish Question in Turkey next Friday 10th June 2011.
It will be 2 days before the Turkish General Election! Please could everyone help to organise for this last event that could be awesome.
So far, on day one #TwitterKurds had over 500 people upwards tweeting on the Kurdish Question in Turkey and day two because we did not manage to get adverts translated we had 70. But those 70 were quality tweeters!
Our last event has the potential to be awesome but needs people to organise for it!
Turkish Election Friday Mass Tweets on The Kurdish Question in Turkey!
Friday 10th June 2011 @ #TwitterKurds on Twitter.
Please share, tweet, translate, facebook, email, blog, publish, telephone, snailmail, tell, write and communicate this event through your networks, contact lists and communities!
You can contact me at Hevallo@gmail.com or @Hevallo on Twitter
Thank you!

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By Hevallo

Turkey is hurtling towards a crossroads and no one knows which road it will take. As we approach the Turkish election on 12th June, everything is up in the air!

How it will land is something that is occupying the minds of Turks, Kurds and the International Community.
Fundamental changes have happened in Turkey, obviously, since the AKP came to power.
Wheter this has been a plan, a method by which to steer Turkey towards greater democracy is a subject that could be debated for hours.
The old certainties have gone. The power of the Turkish Generals is something that does not seem to be a factor anymore. The Kemalist elites seem to of lost a lot of faith in Turkey’s future and bemoan the lost days of their power.
Although the CHP have radically changed their position towards the Kurdish Question, perhaps with an eye to an alliance with the Kurds against the seemingly unstoppable power of the AKP, they have left it too late for this election!
These days it is all about ‘The Great Leader, Erdogan!”
Having reportedly infiltrated the police and other state structures the AKP are attempting to ‘cease total power’ by ‘any means necessary’ and there are many rumours of lurking levers being pulled by Fetullah Gulen, the Islamic scholar who influences many AKP members.
Fetullah Gulen was caught on camera in a secret video advising his supporters of how to achieve Sharia Law in Turkey by secretly and slowly taking over the reigns of power and only when one has total power can you implement your plan. This must be unknown to those around you until you achieve total power, he is reported to of said.
It is all going according to plan for the AKP and Tayyip Erdogan. Except they, perhaps, seem to of left one calculation out of their plans. The Kurdish Question!
While the Islamists have been organising and seizing power from the Kemalists, the Kurds have doing some organising of their own and now are bristling with strength and moral to push for an autonomous system of self government in NW Kurdistan (SE Turkey).
The Kurds have never been stronger than they are now. A Mass Civil Disobedience Campaign on the back of Newroz 2011 and the Jasmine Revolutions in the Middle East has emboldened the Kurdish Freedom Movement to a strength and intensity that could strike fear into the Turkish political elite should it decide to strike!
The Kurdish side has striven for peace however, provocation after provocation has been taken and absorbed!
A Kurdish civil rights campaign has been bludgeoned and gassed by the Turkish security apparatus and the Turkish military have ignored the Kurdish Freedom Movements ‘defensive ceasefire’ and ruthlessly pursued Kurdish guerilla fighters with attack helicopters and chemical weapons!
But the Kurdish legendary patience is wearing thin. Years and years of attempts by the Kurdish leadership to attempt to create the conditions necessary for a political and peaceful resolution of the Kurdish Question have gone unanswered and ignored by the Turkish state.
The state continue to treat the Kurdish demands as ‘separatism and terrorism’ and pursue a purely military solution by flooding Kurdistan with tens of thousands of Turkish soldiers, locking up Kurdish political activists and banning Kurdish political parties. Any criticism through the press is dealt with by way of throwing journalists into jail. The reality for Kurds on the street is very different to the rhetoric of ‘The Great Leader Erdogan!”

It is a macabre and ghastly double talk that infuriates the Kurds as they see Erdogan, publicly supporting the rights of Turks to language in Germany or the rights of Palestinians to a homeland while suppressing those very same rights brutally when it comes to the Kurds in Turkey!
The Kurdish people in Turkey have quite simply had enough! There is a power and intensity in the Kurdish Freedom Movement for justice that is tangible and irrepresible
The only question is will the Turkish government realise this and sensibly indicate they are ready for dialogue.
The Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan has given yet another, but final deadline of 15th June, for Turkey to do just that.
If there is no indication, then the Kurdish military leaders will take over and implement a plan that has, reportedly been worked on for the last 12 months.
The stakes have never been higher! A revolutionary war is planed and imminent!
Otherwise, it is argued, that the PKK will lose credibility with their followers who have not understood how the National Liberation Movement have let so many martyrs be sacrificed without any meaningful change.
There is a massive swathe of the Kurdish population who want to see some revenge taken for the mass killings of young Kurdish youth and for the humiliation shown to the Kurds, historically and especially over the last 3 months.
The Kurdish side have 4 demands that would go some way to show a willingness to begin negotiations. There are:

1. Stop military and political operations immediately. 2. Education in the mother tongue and providing constitutional guarantees for use of the mother tongue in the public sphere. 3. Removing the 10% electoral threshold which obstructs the representation of Kurdish People in the Assembly.4. Release all political prisoners.

So this election for the Kurdish people is more than just another general election it is about a peaceful and political solution to the Kurdish Question in Turkey. The end of the road for the long and profound Kurdish freedom struggle!

The are some, including myself, who cannot believe that the Turkish state will want to ignite this revolutionary war which will further polarise Turkish society and possibly lead to a civil war within Turkey.

We hope that behind the scenes, common sense prevails and political preparations are being made for a historical initiative that will bring peace and justice for all people in Turkey!

But there are many others who totally believe that no such initiative is being planned or is coming and are readying themselves for war!

15th August 1984 is a date written into Kurdish history as the beginning of the armed freedom struggle!

Whatever happens, 15th June 2011 is destined for similar historical importance in the Kurdish Freedom Struggle!

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Join The Online Kurdish Revolution at #TwitterKurds!

As a result of the Turkish State ignoring the many basic human rights requests made by the Kurdish people to obtain recognition of their identity and their cultural, political and civil rights, a mass tweeting campaign started on Twitter on Friday, May 27@ #TwitterKurds


The first mass ‘Friday Tweet’ was massively successful!


Join us for online Civil Disobedience and Friday Tweets at #TwitterKurds


With the second mass tweeting Friday (June 3) approaching, Kurds and supporters of Kurdish rights will once again work together to break the media silence and raise awareness about the Kurdish Freedom Struggle in NW Kurdistan (SE Turkey.)


For decades the International media has kept quiet regarding the Kurdish cause, but through the #TwitterKurds campaign people are asked to highlight the Kurdish question on the social networking site Twitter.


For months the Kurdish people have taken part in a series of acts of civil disobedience with 4 baisc demands! The right to education in mother tongue, release of political prisoners, abolishing the 10% for parliamentary elections in Turkey, which has prevented pro-Kurdish parties from entering the parliament and an end to military operations!


Join the Online #TwitterKurds Revolution!


While the Turkish Government continues to ignore these requests, the Kurdish movement is convinced that dialogue and democratic solution is the only sustainable way to move forward. The population has no intention to abandon the initiatives of civil disobedience and will not give up to seek a peaceful solution.


In the same way the #TwitterKurds campaign aims to spread awareness about the Kurdish issue through dialogue.


By targeting media outlets, journalists, politicians and human rights activists, we hope to give Kurds in Turkey a voice!


Every Friday (June 3, June 10) before the Turkish elections on June 12 we will break the silence and plead everyone to join us and to follow the campaign on Twitter by using the hashtag #TwitterKurds.


Kurdish children are kept for months in jail; thousands of Kurdish political and human rights activists face torture in prison.


We all need to speak out and this brutality needs to come to an end!


Through the #TwitterKurds campaign the Kurds’ struggle for political equality, ethnic recognition and linguistic freedom in Turkey will not go unnoticed in the mainstream press any longer.


Through #TwitterKurds everyone can share their story and voice their opinion.


JOIN US for ‘Friday Tweets’ 3rd June at #TwitterKurds!


One Voice, Together We Are Stronger!


#TwitterKurds


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Maps used by Kurdish Journalists to record burnt or partially burnt Kurdish Villages during Turkey’s Ethnic Cleansing Campaign in Ninties!

The ICC and crimes against humanity in Turkey by Orhan Kemal Cengiz The Zaman.

Finally Ratko Mladic, the former chief of staff of the Army of Republika Srpska, has been arrested and he is on his way to The Hague. This is, of course, a step forward for justice for the victims of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995. I am sure it will be a huge relief for Bosnians to see Mladic accounting for the crimes he has committed before the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

This news, of course, was also met with great happiness in Turkey by Turks, who have a deep affinity with the Bosnian victims for historical and religious reasons. Mladic and his men used to call Bosnian Muslims Turks. Whether they are aware or not of Mladic’s deep-seated hatred for “Turks,” Turkish people welcomed the news of the arrest of this perpetrator of genocide, who is called the Serbian butcher in Turkey.

In Turkey, most people focused on Mladic’s arrest without thinking too much about its implications for the Serbian people and political system. Delivering war criminals and genocide perpetrators one after another to the ICTY, an ad hoc international court, is a manifestation of a strong political will on the part of Serbia, is it not? In this way, the Serbian political establishment has parted ways with the bloody past of Serbian fascists. Some Serbs are really facing up to their past atrocities, in spite of strong ultranationalist segments that are still alive in that society.

Interestingly enough, between 1992 and 1995, while Bosnian Muslims and Croats were being butchered, there was another serious crime committed in southeastern Turkey. During the ’90s more than 3,500 Kurdish villages were destroyed and tens of thousands of extrajudicial killings were committed. While most Turks welcome the delivery of Mladic to the ICTY, most probably they don’t know that those involved in this destruction of villages and extrajudicial killings committed crimes that are defined as “crimes against humanity,” and thus they could also be transferred to The Hague if Turkey became a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).


Under Article 7 of the Rome Statute, crimes against humanity mean, amongst other things, “murder” and “deportation or forcible transfer of population” when committed as part of widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population. This definition is a perfect definition of the crimes that were committed against Kurds in those years. And we also know that the drafters of the Rome Statute also intended to cover the atrocities committed within the borders of a sovereign country. I have not heard about any person being put on trial because of their role in the destruction of villages in southeastern Turkey. Amongst those tens of thousands murders, only 20 of them are now being addressed in a trial in Cizre, murders allegedly committed by Col. Cemal Temizöz between 1993 and 1994 in this district.


We also know that some founders and commanders of JİTEM, which was responsible for most of these extrajudicial killings, are now being tried in the Ergenekon case for being members of this organization. It is, of course, quite significant to see them behind iron bars, but it is also quite sad that we cannot see them giving an account for crimes against humanity. Imagine if Mladic was being tried in Serbia for being a member of a terrorist organization that aims to overthrow the Serbian government. Would it then be said that justice was being served?


Interestingly enough, as far as I can see, most of Turkey’s hesitation regarding the ICC and reluctance to be a part of it stems from the possibility that the prosecutor in The Hague may press charges against people who have committed crimes against Kurds. Retroactive application of the Rome Statute is not a known practice, but bureaucrats in the Turkish Foreign Ministry may be keeping in mind the possibility that the ICC may adhere to the interpretation that in the case of an “ongoing violation” (reluctance to investigate extrajudicial killings and the inability of Kurds to return to their villages that were destroyed) it would be possible for past crimes, which were committed before a state party ratified the Rome Statute, can be tried by the ICC.


As you see, the situation is very complex. But we are left with a quite simple question: While Serbs continue to deliver Serbian butchers to The Hague, who will try Turkish butchers who committed crimes against humanity in the ’90s against Kurds in Turkey? Source:Zaman

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The Kurds must be given their place on the ‘new map’ of the Middle East and be recognized by the Turkish authorities, said a senior Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader on Saturday.

At the head of the Union of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK), an umbrella for all organizations affiliated with the PKK, Murat Karayilan, told Turkey’s Firat news agency that the wave of public uprisings through the Middle East would alter the political map of the region.

“The Kurds should be given a place on the new map,” Karayilan said.

The KCK leader spoke with optimism about the Freedom and Democracy bloc, a coalition of Kurdish parties in Turkey brought together by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), and their chances of winning the June 12 general elections.

Karayilan went on to warn of an uprising, dubbed the June 15 Resurrection, for which the “revolutionary fighters” have been preparing for over a year now, if the Turkish state continues to “deny the Kurds” their rights

The PKK’s three-decade armed struggle for the ethnic rights of Turkey’s 20 million Kurds has cost 40,000 lives to date, mostly civilians.

The outlawed party is listed as a terrorist organization in Turkey, Iran, the UK, and the U.S.

In 2010, the PKK declared several unilateral ceasefires with a view to resolving the Kurdish issue through dialogue with the Turkish state. The declared armistaces however did not deter the Turkish authorities from coducting military operations and incursions against the PKK guerillas.Source.

Posted by: hevallo | May 30, 2011

>Join the Online Kurdish Revolution at #TwitterKurds!

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#TwitterKurds a new topic on Twitter had our first ‘Mass Tweet’ online last Friday and is now firmly established as a ‘campaigning topic’ on Twitter!

After 20 years of campaigning on the Kurdish Question in Turkey it was one of the most exciting ‘events’ I have ever attended and one that has the potential to be an effective tool for campaigning to raise awareness of the Kurdish Question in Turkey in the Western world that has been criminally silent and acquiescing in the psychotic crimes against the Kurds by remaining silent and accepting Turkey’s labels and misinformation regarding the Kurdish struggle for basic rights in Turkey!
Logging in on the Thursday night before the ‘Mass Tweet’ was to begin, (Introduction to #TwitterKurds Mass Tweet) I was amazed to find the ‘hashtag’ already screaming down the screen.
Those of us who had organised the event struggled to ‘catch up’!
Impossible to tell how many took part but I would guestimate, 500 upwards participates from Thursday night to Friday night all tweeting on the Kurdish Question in Turkey! Tweeps were tweeting from Turkey, Kurdistan, Sweden, US, UK, Canada, Germany, Holland, Spain, France, Denmark, Australia, Armenia, Iraq and many other places!
A Worldwide Mass Tweet on The Kurdish Question in Turkey! It was Awesome!
It reportedly, country trended in Turkey and there were reports of it being banned in Turkey!
We had ‘guest visits’ from people such as Mahmoud Othman, a fiercely independent Kurdish MP and other commentators and journalists, and we practised our tweets, trying to perfect the art of tweeting.
A good tweet includes an address (if sending to a journalist or paper) , a link to interesting article, appropriate hashtags and some description putting the link into context.
TwitterKurds got a mention in Atlantic Wire in an article entitled, When the Revolution Will be Tweeted.
#TwitterKurds has only been in existence for less than a week and is making a BIG IMPACT!
‘Friday Prayers and now FRIDAY TWEETS!
Be part of the online Kurdish revolution!
Join us for our NEXT MASS TWEET this Friday. (and every Friday before the Turkish General Election 12th June.)
WE ASK this Friday that tweeps refine their tweets, focus and concentrate on our mission, to BREAK THE SILENCE on reporting on the Kurdish issue in Turkey!

DO YOUR BEST!

Please Remember! A Tweet is an opportunity to reach someone of influence. Use it wisely and we will be successful but use it wrongly and it could harm our cause!

The most important thing is not wheter we are ‘topic trending’ or wheter we are ‘banned in Turkey’ or not!

The most critically important thing is wheter we are being successful in encouraging more reporting on the Kurdish issue in Turkey.
We achieved our target of one article in a periodical last Friday and if we can get another mention in another article this week we will be on track in our mission.
Please join our ‘FRIDAY TWEET’ this Friday 3rd June, 2011.

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The Last Time Barcelona Played Man Utd in Qandil it was also Barcelona 3 Man Utd 1
WELL PLAYED BARCELONA!
VIVA BARCA!

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When will the Kurds get their justice for the nearly 3,000 Kurdish Towns, villages and hamlets that were burnt in SE Turkey by the Turkish Army?

The Turkish Army were at their height of burning Kurdish towns and villages when the world’s media were in Bosnia!

COMPLETE SILENCE ABOUT TURKEY’S ETHNIC CLEANSING!


Kurdish Town of 35,000 Burnt to the Ground by Turkish Army in 1993.
Pictures by Hevallo.

All of these pictures were taken under the most extreme circumstances. They were taken clandestinely as we were under very close ‘supervision’ by different teams of Turkish Army and Police Intelligence Agencies. They were presented to the European Court of Human Rights by the Kurdish Human Rights Project in their case against Turkey.




Only these two shops were not burnt. Jash or Kurdish traitors owned them, they had to be protected by the army!

Lice (Pronounced Leejay)22nd October 1993. A Kurdish conscript of the Turkish army came to the town school and told the teachers to take the children somewhere safe as, “there is going to be a massacre here today”. Then hundreds of soldiers entered the town with jeeps, tanks, helicopters and flamethrowers.


Many people were shot in the streets as they ran for cover. Holes from millions of rounds ammunition peppered all the buildings and the minaret of the local mosque had a hole the size of a large car at the base.

Eye witness statements told of Land Rovers with small trailers on the back full of ‘a chemical substance’ which was being shovelled by soldiers onto the floors of shops, only to spontaneously combust into flames.


The only house to be left standing was one that had a Turkish flag hanging in the garden. A young Kurdish pupil had been instructed by the Turkish teacher to take the flag home the previous day so as to wash and dry it. So it was hanging on the washing line. All the shops in the main street were gutted by fire.


A large town with a population of around 35,000 people, razed and not a word, not a whisper from the international community. During the nineties over 4,000 Kurdish villages, towns and hamlets were destroyed like this. Always accompanied by the most barbaric human rights abuses carried out by the Turkish army. Killings, mutilations, rape, torture, humilation etc.


“Ten people were burnt alive in this room” a visiting UK trade union delegation were told when they visited the town less than one month after the atrocity. Local people say that over 100 people were brutally killed on 22nd and 23rd of October 1993 when the Turkish army razed Lice.

When this and hundreds of other towns, villages and hamlets were being systematically burnt and sacked, European tourists were coming and oiling themselves with suncream and complaining about the showers in their hotels.
Not a word of protest from anyone!

Time for the media to Speak Out!

>TURKISH GENERALS were at their height of burning Kurdish Villages during Bosnia! #TwitterKurds #Mladic #Bosnia #Turkey #Hypocracy

VOICELESS KURDS IN TURKEY Begin Fightback! Mass Tweeting on Friday http://bit.ly/lE8Eoj #TwitterKurds #socialmedia #mladic #warcrimes
Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, Kurdish Politician Leyla Zana’s Last ‘Crime’ in Turkey! VIDEO http://bit.ly/lxTGFP #TwitterKurds #Mladic #Kurds
Lord Avebury, “Isn’t it time the world indicted the imitators of #Mladic and Karadjic in Kurdistan?” http://bit.ly/iQihCE #TwitterKurds
PICTURES: This Large Kurdish Town in #Turkey was burnt down the same time as #Mladic was burning Bosnia! http://bit.ly/meVgUT #TwitterKurds
@anitamcnaught Kurdish Tsunami to hit Turkey! http://bit.ly/ihQGF1 #TwitterKurds
Because of the criminalisation of Kurds in Turkey there is a racist hysteria against Kurds! Does’nt matter what Kurds do!
Tomorrow for Kurds, Friday Prayers and Friday Tweets! http://bit.ly/lE8Eoj #TwitterKurds #spannishrevolution #Mladic #Libya #SocialMedia
Complete S I L E N C E about Turkey’s Ethnic Cleansing of K U R D S as Mladic is jailed! http://bit.ly/igEUvQ #Justice #TwitterKurds
At Dawn as the Sun Rises #TwitterKurds begin to hatch!
20 Months in a Turkish Jail for Writing News of Kurdish Question in Turkey! #TwitterKurds
Join The Kurdish Online #Revolution! Break S I L E N C E of Turkish Suppression of #Kurds! http://bit.ly/m7pL8n #TwitterKurds #socialmedia
The Rape and Torture of Kurdish Women by Turkish Security Forces http://bit.ly/ey4tiy #TwitterKurds #WARNINGPicture! #humanrights #Amnesty
Posted by: hevallo | May 26, 2011

>Introduction to #TwitterKurds Day of Action.

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Welcome to #TwitterKurds hrs before Day of Action! Mass Tweeting for Kurdish Rights in Turkey!

The International Media have ignored the Kurdish Question in Turkey for far too long! #TwitterKurds
Silence = aquiescence and Turkey is emboldened by the S I L E N C E of the International Media!
#TwitterKurds
More Kurds are imprisoned, beaten, killed, tortured, BECAUSE of the S I L E N C E of the media. #TwitterKurdswitterKurds is preparing and organising a fightback!
But we must be disciplined, organised, clever, intelligent to get our message over! #TwitterKurds
T O D A Y is the F I R S T time this has been tried! Mass Tweet on Kurdish Question in Turkey! #TwitterKurds
We will learn from T O D A Y and improve our tactics, targets, tweets! #TwitterKurds
For N E X T F R I D A Y! #TwitterKurds
Above everything we need to learn the art of tweeting. Of perfecting the perfect tweet. #TwitterKurds
The perfect tweet must reach the target with the right load! Like a missile! #TwitterKurds
We need to collect the tweet names of people we seek to influence, mainly Foreign Editors of Newspapers and Broadcast Media. #TwitterKurds
Then we need to pursuade, inform, gently push, to highlight the Kurdish issue more! #TwitterKurds
The measure of our success will be the coverage! Our target for today is O N E story in the media! Either broadcast or print! #TwitterKurds
If we can achieve that then we will set our sights higher. But first we need to learn H O W! #TwitterKurds
Now Action! We have contact lists, Facebook pages, suggested tweets and blogs. #TwitterKurds
So you can use our tools or create your own! It’s up to you!
Questions to @hevallo @RuwaydaMustafah @zurdosh @kurdcomment + @xoshink
We have a serious job to do! #TwitterKurds
Anyone who campaigns on the Kurdish issue knows about Provocators or Turkish nationalists. #TwitterKurds.
I’m afraid that time wasters will be considered to be Turkish Provocators. Noone is to let anyone deflect us from our mission. #TwitterKurds

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