Dirabakir protests, October 20, 2008
October 20, 2008, during protests in Diyarbakır, SE Turkey, an estimated 50 minors were arrested for throwing stones at security forces and police. These children, who are between the ages of 11-18, have been charged by the 5th Commissairiat Assize Court  of Diyarbakır with “being a member of a terrorist organization,” […]

While I was in SE Turkey, I befriended a young activist, Ipek Tasli, pictured above, who is working against the Ilisu Dam project. Below is a press release from the Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP) about her recent arrest.
KHRP is deeply concerned about the arrest of Ipek Tasli, a joint coordinator with the Keep Hasankeyf […]

“What is my name?” shouted a ten-year old boy in my face. “My name is PKK!”
I thought back to a moment when I was working on a story on a women’s prison in Afghanistan where the inmates often have and raise their children in jail. I asked one child his name. “My name is my […]

Turkish forces continued to pound Northern Iraq today in a grand show of force against Kurdish forces after yesterday’s scandalous revelations by the Turkish daily Taraf that the army had apparently ignored intelligence reports that the October 3 PKK attacks were imminent. The breaking news supports a commonly held theory that the PKK and Turkish […]

I take back what I said in my previous post, as the Turkish army has announced it bombed 31 targets inside northern Iraq since October 4. I guess I was too busy packing to check the news properly. The seventh air raid took place yesterday, although, as a caveat, I must note that many believe […]

Switching continents now….I will be spending the next few weeks in Turkey documenting the Turko-Kurdish tensions that have continued to plague the Eurasion nation, and that have largely prevented it from joining the European Union. I am, in effect, embarking on a long-term project on the whole of greater Kurdistan which will eventually take me […]