The blog had
the opportunity to watch, for one more year, a few interesting
documentaries at the 19th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. Among
them, a quite interesting story about a young Kurdish-German woman who was elected the youngest mayor in Turkey.
From the
description
of the film:
The
warm, sympathetic portrait of a 26-year-old Kurdish-German named
Leyla Imret, who was elected the youngest mayor in Turkey. In a
record 81% landslide, she is elected mayor of Cizre,
a Kurdish city that lies in the region at Turkey’s border with
Syria and Iraq.
It
is here that Leyla was born, but after her father, a Kurdish guerilla
fighter, was killed by the Turkish military, she was sent at the age
of 5 to live in Germany.
After
more than 20 years, she returns home. Her goal is to heal the
civil-wartorn city. But on the eve of Turkey’s parliamentary
elections, when old memories become more real than ever, will the
voice of an emancipated woman be heard in a world of zealots?
As the
rudaw.net
reported in September 2015: “Cizre
Mayor Leyla Imret, a Kurd, has been suspended by Turkey’s interior
ministry in the wake of the city becoming a focal point of renewed
conflict between Ankara and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The
Turkish Hurriyet Daily News reported Saturday the interior ministry
suspended Imret on Friday on accusations she had encouraged her
fellow Kurds to begin an armed uprising and “terror propaganda,”
after Turkey announced a curfew on Cizre begun on September 4 would
end Saturday. Cizre is located in the heavily Kurdish Sirnak province
in Turkey’s restive southeast.”
As described
in the film, Leyla Imret was suspended and arrested by the Turkish
authorities in the context of a new round of suppression against the
Kurdish regions by the Erdogan regime as a result of a historical
high percentage achieved by the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party
(HDP) during the Turkish general election in June 2015. As the Vice
reported in August 7, 2015: “The crackdown, they say, is
revenge. In Turkey's general election of June 7, the pro-Kurdish
Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) exceeded the 10 percent vote
threshold required to secure a parliamentary presence for the first
time. In doing so, it blocked Erdogan's ambitions of securing a
"super majority" for the AKP, which would in turn allow him
to alter the constitution and vastly expand his own powers.”
During the
discussion after the screening, the film director, Asli Özarslan,
claimed that the communication with Leyla Imret is currently very
difficult. Our impression is that even her current location is not
clear. Imret had denied the accusation for "encouraging"
terrorist activities.
It is
certain that, the last person entitled to accuse others for fascist
behavior is the Turkish president. Erdogan is responsible for Leyla
Imret and thousands of other political prisoners. He should answer
immediately about Leyla's current location and situation. Instead of
accusing the Europeans for being fascists, screaming for justice, he
should look first at his administration and the thousands of human
rights violations in Turkey.
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