GMB and Unite campaign to free Kurdish leader imprisoned in Turkey sends ‘birthday greeting’ via British ambassador

MARKING THE 69th birthday of jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, a UK trade union campaign calling for his freedom has sent a birthday card and pointed letter to British Ambassador to Turkey, Sir Dominick Chilcott.

Human ‘statue’ of Kurdish symbol of resistance unveiled in Dundee

ACTIVISTS IN Dundee demonstrated solidarity with the Kurdish people in Northern Syria this Saturday (24 March) by unveiling a human ‘statue’ of Kawa the Blacksmith, a symbol of resistance.

Campaigners from Scottish Solidarity with Kurdistan (SSK) came together with the Dundee Trades Union Council to oppose ongoing Turkish aggression in the region.

Turkish assault on Kurdish-controlled Afrin condemned by cross-party parliamentarians

AMID TURKISH airstrikes and ground attacks in Northern Syria with the aim of removing the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units), SNP MP Chris Stephens wrote to Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on Wednesday, urging him to take action to end the violence.

‘Glasgow Girl’ Roza Salih speaks to CommonSpace about the Kurdish people’s global struggle for equality and autonomy, and how revolutionaries in Syria have succeeded in creating a radical democracy with women at its core

“MANY countries in the Middle East have forgotten women’s role - they have forgotten 50 per cent of the population.” Roza Salih, co-founder of Scottish Solidarity with Kurdistan, tells CommonSpace how the new governance system established in Rojava, Northern Syria, is revolutionary in more ways than one.  

Kurdish community centre and homes raided by plain clothes police

THE Kurdish Community Centre and a number of Kurdish families in Edinburgh experienced raids by plain clothes police officers in the early hours of Wednesday (30 August) morning.  

Scottish Solidarity with Kurdistan and the Kurdish Community Centre condemned the raids as “an open form of racism” and have said that they believe that pressure from the Turkish consulate is behind the raids.

Campaigners in favour of a Kurdish homeland gather as Kurdish leader arrives in Scotland

SALIH MUSLIM, the co-president of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) from Rojava in Kurdish Syria is visiting Scotland for the first time.

His visit follows fierce fighting between the PYD forces and the Daesh (so called Islamic State) terror group, and the severe increase in repression from the Turkish state against political opponents and Kurdish civilians.

Protests against Turkish aggression against Kurds in Syria bring hundreds to the streets

A PROTEST took place on Tuesday outside the Turkish and Russian consulates in Edinburgh, with organisers estimating that over 400 people from the Kurdish and Scottish community turned out to oppose Turkey’s assault against Kurdish-controlled Afrin in Syria.

Turkish bombing of Kurdish-controlled region in Syria denounced by activists

SCOTTISH SOLIDARITY WITH KURDISTAN has sent a letter to all Scottish MPs and MSPs calling for condemnation of the Turkish Government’s attack on Afrin, one of three cantons of Northern Syria currently controlled by the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units).

Turkey joins Iraq in rejecting a freeze on implementing independence vote

TENSIONS IN IRAQ and the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan are running dangerously high as clashes and democratic stalemate continue between the two Governments and their forces, following a landslide vote for Kurdish independence last month.

The Iraqi Government, supported by its neighbours Turkey and Iran, has been clear since the referendum took place on 25 September – with a 92 per cent vote for independence on a 72.6 per cent turnout – that the results would not be respected.