How many people have the PKK killed?
The PKK, established by Abdullah Ocalan in 1978, has waged an insurgency since 1984 against Turkish authorities for greater cultural and political rights, primarily with the objective of establishing an independent Kurdish state. The ongoing conflict has resulted in nearly forty thousand deaths.
What did Turkey do to Kurds?
During the Kurdish–Turkish conflict, food embargoes were placed on Kurdish villages and towns. There were many instances of Kurds being forcibly expelled from their villages by Turkish security forces. Many villages were reportedly set on fire or destroyed.
Who persecuted the Kurds?
The persecution of Kurds is the ethnic and political persecution which is inflicted upon Kurds by the governments of Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Iraq.
Where is Ocalan now?
The sentence was commuted to aggravated life imprisonment when Turkey abolished the death penalty. From 1999 until 2009, he was the sole prisoner in İmralı prison in the Sea of Marmara, where he is still held. Öcalan has advocated a political solution to the conflict since the 1993 Kurdistan Workers’ Party ceasefire.
How many Turkish soldiers killed by PKK?
The PKK said 1,557 Turkish security forces members were killed in 2015 during the clashes in Turkish and Iraqi Kurdistan, while it lost 220 fighters.
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Timeline of the Kurdish–Turkish conflict (2015–present)
| Date | 24 July 2015 – present (7 years, 1 month, 3 weeks and 3 days) |
|---|---|
| Location | Eastern and Southeastern Turkey, Northern Syria, Northern Iraq |
| Status | Ongoing |
Why are Kurds persecuted in Turkey?
Nowhere is their future more threatened than in Turkey where Kurds are one quarter of the population. Since World War I, Kurds in Turkey have been the victims of persistent assaults on their ethnic, cultural, religious identity and economic and political status by successive Turkish governments.
Is it illegal to speak Kurdish in Turkey?
Currently, it is illegal to use the Kurdish language as an instruction language in private and public schools, yet there are schools who defy this ban.
Does Iran support Kurds?
Iran never employed the same level of brutality against its own Kurdish population, but has always been staunchly opposed to Kurdish separatism.
Can Yazidis eat pork?
While some Yazidi practices resemble those of Islam—refraining from eating pork, for example—many Yazidi practices appear to be unique in the region. Yazidi society is organized into a rigid religious caste system, and many Yazidis believe that the soul is reincarnated after death.
Why is Öcalan in jail?
Abdullah Öcalan is imprisoned since February 1999 on İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara where he is serving a life sentence for violating Art. 125 of the Turkish Penal Code. Initially he was sentenced to death but the conviction was commuted to a life sentence in October 2002.
What is PPK in Turkey?
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK (Kurdish: پارتی کرێکارانی کوردستان / Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan) is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of southeastern Turkey …
How many Kurdish civilians has Turkey killed?
According to the International Crisis Group, 4,226 people, including 465 civilians, were killed in Turkey between July 2015 and December 2018, including Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elçi.
Why are the Kurds fighting Turkey?
The Kurdish–Turkish conflict is an armed conflict between the Republic of Turkey and various Kurdish insurgent groups who have either demanded separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan, or attempted to secure autonomy and greater political and cultural rights for Kurds inside the Republic of Turkey.
Is Kurdish hard to learn?
Learning Kurdish can be hard in terms of grammar and learning resources, especially if you don’t speak any middle-eastern language. The Kurmanji dialect can be easier for speakers of European languages because it uses the Latin alphabet, while the Surani dialect uses the Arabic script.
What percent of Turkey is Kurd?
18%
Kurds make up around 18% of Turkey’s population; Turkey’s largest Kurdish population lives in Istanbul (2 million). The majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslim, with Alevi Shi’a Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Yezidi communities.
Does the US recognize Kurdistan?
Currently the United States has official policy towards the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq.
Are Kurdish Shia or Sunni?
Nearly all Iraqi Kurds consider themselves Sunni Muslims. In our survey, 98% of Kurds in Iraq identified themselves as Sunnis and only 2% identified as Shias. (A small minority of Iraqi Kurds, including Yazidis, are not Muslims.)
Why can’t Yazidis eat lettuce?
Their famous ban on eating lettuce can be explained by the fact that the Kurdish word for lettuce happens to be “khas”, which the Yazidis use to denote their saints. Over the years such customs have been ridiculed to belittle and promote hostility towards Yazidis.
Can Yazidis drink alcohol?
Yazidis are permitted to drink alcohol, unlike Muslims.
Who is the leader of the Kurdish people?
The current President of Kurdistan Region is Nechirvan Barzani, who assumed office on 10 June 2019.
Does Sweden Support Kurds?
Swedish MP Fredrik Malm stated that “We are friends of the Kurdish people and we follow the events closely, and our key objective is to support the self-determination of the Kurdish people.”
Are Kurds Shia or Sunni?
Nearly all Iraqi Kurds consider themselves Sunni Muslims. In our survey, 98% of Kurds in Iraq identified themselves as Sunnis and only 2% identified as Shias. (A small minority of Iraqi Kurds, including Yazidis, are not Muslims.) But being a Kurd does not necessarily mean alignment with a particular religious sect.
Is speaking Kurdish illegal in Turkey?
Why were Kurds killed?
The campaign targeted rural Kurds because its purpose was to eliminate Kurdish rebel groups and Arabize strategic parts of the Kirkuk Governorate.