Saturday, April 4
Multicultural Hub, 506 Elizabeth St, Melbourne. Doors open for registration at 9:30am; conference finishes at 5:30pm. Organised by the Federation of Democratic Kurdish Society-Australia, Kurdish Women’s League of Victoria, Rojava Solidarity (Sydney) & Australians for Kurdistan
Tickets: $50 solidarity, $15 regular, $7 concession
Bookings: www.trybooking.com/BIOQP
For more information: Email Australians for Kurdistan
[By Peter Boyle] STRASBOURG, February 20 — Thousands of Kurds and their international supporters converged for a huge march and rally in Strasbourg on February 15 [see photo above], to demand the release of Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan. Öcalan has been imprisoned by the Turkish state for the past 21 years, after being illegally abducted in Kenya with the help of the CIA.
[By Peter Boyle] BRUSSELS, February 13 — Left and green parliamentarians from across Europe condemned Turkey’s invasion of Rojava, the democratic autonomous liberated zone in North and East Syria, at an international conference on February 5–6. The conference was titled “The European Union, Turkey, the Middle East and the Kurds” and was held in the European Parliament in Brussels.
The Central Committee of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê) has commented on the ruling of the Court of Cassation in Brussels, which earlier this week finally confirmed the decision of the Court of Appeal that the PKK is not a “terrorist organisation” but a party in an armed conflict.
[Serkan Demirel interviews Shaoz Hesen, co-chairperson of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the most influential party in the Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria.]
Donald Trump’s October withdrawal of US troops from the Rojava region of north-east Syria, home to the Kurdish allies who fought off Isis, and the subsequent Turkish invasion, created an instant humanitarian catastrophe with more than 300,000 internally displaced people already.