National Demonstration Stop Turkey’s War on the Kurds – Break the silence!
6th March 2016, Assembling 12 noon BBC Broadcasting House marching to Trafalgar Square for rally at 2-5pm.
Speakers include: Natalie Bennett Green Party Leader, Kate Osamor MP, Natalie McGarry MP, Lindsey German Stop the War Coalition, Mark Thomas Comedian, Jeremy Hardy Comedian, Tariq Ali, Peter Tatchell, Weyman Bennet Unite Against Fascism and many other speakers from Trade Unions and other organisations.
Call to the Press: There is a civil war being fought in the cities and towns of southeast Turkey. Fifty two round-the-clock curfews have been imposed by the central government on Kurdish-majority communities; in some places for the last three months. The government has used tanks, artillery, and helicopter gunships to destroy whole sections of its own cities including Cizre, Sur and Silopi – supplies of electricity, water and gas are cut. Hundreds are dead. People have been shot at even while waving white flags in desperate efforts to find food and water.
Civilians have been trapped in basements while seeking shelter from the fire and bombs; wounded people are burned alive, children shot on the streets, dead women’s bodies stripped naked for display, the Turkish state and army is engaged in a mass murderous war, not only on young Kurdish militants, but on the civilian Kurdish population in front of the eyes of the international community, which does not utter a word of condemnation of these atrocities.
The Kurds are the most effective force fighting against ISIS in the Middle East. They advocate a secular, libertarian and gender equal, direct democracy model of governance, what could only be considered as a solution to the darkness that has shrouded the region for far too long. Selahattin Demirtas, the co-chair HDP (the pro-Kurdish party in parliament) issued a video appeal today for attendance at this demonstration saying it would strengthen the resistance of the Kurds.
Help us end the Turkish state brutality against the Kurds. Help us break the silence.
For more information and to arrange interviews contact Mark Campbell (07865 079415) or Zeynep Kurban (07799 285812)