News & events

20-09-2018

A Conference marking 25 years of PKK ban


This November marks the 25th anniversary of the ban of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) initiated in 1993 by Chancellor Dr. Manfred Kanther. Since then thousands of criminal procedures have been taken against Kurdish activists and supportive left activists, who publicly displayed the allegedly forbidden PKK symbols. - Peace in Kurdistan Campaign, 20 September 2018

Due to the Vereinigungsdelikte (Association Offences) of the criminal law paragraph 129, 129a and 129b (membership in a criminal/terrorist organisation), we have seen hundreds of indictments, arrests and sentences of people who did nothing more than engage in a political struggle for the Kurdish Freedom Movement.

The continuity of repression over the course of 25 years is remarkable, irrespective of the German Federal government coalition, the political developments in Turkey and Kurdistan, as well as that of the Kurdish Freedom Movement. Due to the economic and political importance of German-Turkish relations, the repression of the Kurdish opposition and parts of the Turkish and German left in Germany is inherent in the decision-making processes in the criminal justice system. The repression is led by the Federal Criminal Police Office, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, the Secret Service and the inner circles in the Ministry of Interior of the federal states, as well as the foreign ministry. The answers given by the Federal Government to parliamentary inquiries make it clear that these institutions have a fixed conception of the PKK as an enemy entity, which has little to do with the reality in the Middle East as well as Germany in 2018.

Read more here