Workers Solidarity Movement

People gathered outside the Turkish embassy in Dublin last night to take part in a solidarity protest of remembrance for the 100 plus people killed in the bombing of a peace rally in Ankara on Saturday. 

They painted our red and black flags and banners with blood and flesh of our comrades. Those responsible for the massacre are out there. We know them from Haymarket, Bloody Sunday, Mayday 1977 Istanbul Massacre, Reyhanli, Gezi Uprising, Roboski Massacre, Diyarbakir Dungeons and Suruç. We know them from the daily exploitation of a thousand year. They stand before us merciless, smirking.

We remember Ali Kitapci, the first person to organise for the anarcho-syndicalist cause in modern Turkey. He was one of the 14 members of Independent Transportation Union killed in the Ankara bombing on Saturday. He first get involved with the anarchist movement in England and continued to be active for the last 30 years. Apart from his fight for syndicalism, he was an active member of many anarchist organisations in Ankara from the second half of 1980s.

There will be a protest at the Turkish embassy in Dublin this Thursday at 18.30.  The embassy is on Raglan Road.  FB Event

Graffiti has appeared at the site of the bomb explosion in Ankara yesterday that reads "It was not terror that killed us, it was the state." This is reflecting the widespread belief that the true origins of the bombing that killed around 100 people at the pro Kurdish peace demonstration are to be found in Erdogan's AKP party desperate attempt to intensify conflict in the hope of polarizing the electorate ahead of Novembers elections. The same process in other words that those killed yesterday were demonstrating against.

Shorting after yesterday's bombing of a pro-Kurdish peace rally in Ankara, the capitol city of the Turkish state out friends in DAF released the statement below.  Since the release the death toll from the bombing has gone over 100 people and is expected to rise further.

CAN’T BE FORGOTTEN, CAN’T BE FORGIVEN

The cartoon on the left is from a few months ago but expresses how Kurds saw the role of the Turkish state towards ISIS and the conflict in Syria. Considerable evidence of support for ISIS from the Turkish state has been published in the international media over the last months. An ISIS commander told the Washington Post on August 12, 2014, "We used to have some fighters -- even high-level members of the Islamic State -- getting treated in Turkish hospitals."

This Sunday the Observer revealed details of a US Special forces raid on an ISIS compound. “One senior western official familiar with the intelligence gathered at the slain leader’s compound said that direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking ISIS members was now “undeniable”.” Oil smuggling was what that ISIS leader was co-ordinating with the Turkish officials and ISIS were getting an “estimated $1m-$4m per day in oil revenue”

Dublin protested last night against ISIS and the support it has received to date from the Turkish state. The protest was called by Lookleft in the aftermath of the Suruc bombing. 32 humanitarian volunteers on the way to help in the rebuilding of Kobane were killed in the bombing, at least 2 anarchists were amongst those killed.

The bomb went off on Monday at a community centre in Suruç a small mostly Kurdish town just across the border in the Turkish state. The Amara Culture Centre which was where 300 people on a Federation of Socialist Youth Associations stayed on their way to Kobane. 32 of them were killed by the bomb including at least two anarchists and over 100 injured, some critically.

Turkey goes to the polls June 7th and for the first time it looks like a radical left party, the HDP may get enough votes to claim seats in parliament. In the last couple of weeks of the campaign at least two HDP officers have been bombed, the driver of a HDP election vehicle was shot dead and unknown numbers of its activists have been arrested by the Turkish state.

Why is the Turkish state and the ruling AKP party so threatened by the HDP? The HDP presents itself as anti-capitalist and aspires to end religious, gender and racial discrimination. It has a 50% quota for women and a 10% quota for the LGBT community when fielding candidates. It's an expression of the movement coming out of Gezi park but also of the new ideology of the PKK and despite the peace process any manifestation related to the PKK continues to be repressed by the Turkish state.

The parliament in Turkey has witnessed unprecedented scenes; opposition MPs being beaten up by AKP (the ruling Justice and Development Party) MPs and Ministers, one MP being pushed down from the balcony of the assembly hall, falling facedown resulting in broken ribs, right wing ultra nationalist MHP MPs and socialist Kurdish opposition party MPs holding a sit in side by side.  All because of the new  New ‘Internal Security Package’ .  In this piece one of our supporters in Turkey explains what is happening and goes on to look at the broader context, including events in Rojava. 
 

DAF, an anarchist group in the Turkish state held a demonstration for the anarchist prisoner Nikos Romanos who is in hunger strike for 29 days in Greece and for our sisters and brothers who has been murdered while resisting in Greece, in Ferguson, in Mexico, in Kobanê.

Nikos is a 21-year-old who has been on hunger strike at a prison near Athens since Nov. 10 after authorities rejected his demand for educational leave. He had managed to win a place at Athens’ School of Business Administration. His father has told the Guardian “He is a fanatical lover of life. He wants to live But this is his 27th day without food and his condition is deteriorating. He is getting weaker.” On Saturday 6000 protesters clashed with police in Athens in the aftermath of occupations of municipal, university and union buildings