German-Turkish intergovernmental consultations in Berlin: Vigil in front of the Federal Chancellery (12:30 pm, January 22)

Invitation: Human rights action

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) will be holding a vigil in front of the Federal Chancellery in Berlin on Friday (January 22, 2016, from 12:30 to 2:30 pm) and appeal to German Chancellor Angela Merkel to urge the Turkish Government to re-enter a dialogue with the Kurdish people and to open the border to Syria for aid supplies. The STP stated: “Turkey must stop its policy of oppression and persecution against the 15 million Kurds in the country as well as the members of the ethnic group in the neighboring countries – immediately! Thus, Germany and Europe must demand the NATO-ally to re-enter a dialogue.”

In a letter to the chancellor, the Society for Threatened Peoples warns: “We had to notice that the Turkish government – led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP – is becoming more and more authoritarian, treating political opponents in an autocratic, intolerant, authoritarian and ruthless manner. AKP-politicians have even insulted renowned academics, publicly calling them “whores”, “terrorists” or “traitors” just because they spoke up to put an end to the violence against the Kurdish population in the southeast of the country.”

Kurdish villages and neighborhoods in the region are cut off from the outside world and taken under fire with tanks and heavy artillery – under the pretext of “fighting terrorism”. At least 100 curfews have been imposed in ten different towns since mid-December 2015. According to the pro-Kurdish party HDP, at least 102 civilians got killed in the Kurdish province of Sirnak since mid-December 2015 alone.

The Society for Threatened Peoples recalls that the Turkish government continues to provide logistical support for radical Islamist groups in Syria, despite the suicide attack on a group of German tourists on January 12 and in spite of international pressure. Groups like this are known for attacks on civilians, especially against members of religious and ethnic minorities. Thus, 17 people have lost their lives and at least 30 have been injured in attacks on members of the Assyrian Aramaic minority in the multiethnic city of Qamishli in northern Syria since the end of December 2015.

Further, the human rights organization insists that Turkey must open its borders for crucial relief supplies to northern Syria, where hundreds of thousands of IDPs, Christian Assyrians/Aramaeans, Yazidis, Armenians, Kurds and Arabs, have sought protection from the terrorists of the Islamic State (IS). They urgently need humanitarian assistance. “If there’s no help, many more people will have to flee to Germany and the rest of Europe!”

Christian Johnsen, deputy spokesman of the STP’s regional groups, will be on-site on Friday.

Header photo: Evgeni Zotov via Flickr