Kurdistan Workers' Party

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Current logo of the Kurdistan Workers' Party
Logo of the PKK (1978–1995)

The Kurdish Workers' Party ( Kurdish Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê ; PKK ) is a Kurdish , socialist militant underground organization with origins in the Kurdish settlement areas within Turkey . She fights in Turkey and partly also in the neighboring countries for the political autonomy of Kurdish populated areas. Your military arm carries out attacks on military and civilian targets. The aim of the PKK is the establishment of an independent Kurdish state or a “democratic, autonomous Kurdistan” within the existing state borders with its own “non-state administrations”, depending on the reading.

The organization and its successors are classified as a terrorist organization by , among others, Turkey, the European Union (since 2002), the United States and Germany . The United Nations and states such as China , Russia , India and Egypt do not classify the PKK as a terrorist organization. Since May 2008 the PKK has been on the drug trafficking list of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act in the USA. The German Office for the Protection of the Constitution considers the PKK to be the largest "foreign extremist organization in Germany". In doing so, she tries to cover up her aggressive actions in the Middle East with a peaceful demeanor in Europe, but her supporters nevertheless lead to violent riots. In 2018, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution estimated the number of PKK members in Germany at 14,000, and the number is rising. According to an analysis by the Council on Foreign Relations , the PKK committed a total of 35 acts of terrorism in 2011, making it 9th among the world's most active terrorist organizations.

organization

The PKK has sister organizations in various countries:

The umbrella organization has been called Koma Civakên Kurdistan ("Community of Kurdistan Societies") since 2007 . It has given itself a constitution, gives "citizenship" and maintains its own parliament, courts and an army. The " Kurdistan People's Congress " chaired by Zübeyir Aydar exercises the function of parliament in this structure. The nominal leader of the KCK is Abdullah Öcalan . It is actually led by an executive council headed by Cemil Bayık and Bese Hozat . The organization's bases and camps are located in the Kandil Mountains , a mountain region in northeast Iraq.

The organization names

The Kurdistan Workers' Party has renamed itself several times in the course of its history. In April 2002, the name was first renamed "Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress" ( Kongreya Azadî û Demokrasiya Kurdistanê , KADEK). A year and a half later, it was renamed the Kurdistan People's Congress ( Kongra Gelê Kurdistan , or Kongra Gel for short). In 2005 the name Koma Komalên Kurdistan was adopted and in June 2007 the name was finally changed to Koma Civakên Kurdistan .

Women and youth

Women and youth hold a special position within the PKK. They are seen as the "avant-garde of the liberation struggle". The Koma Jinen Bilind ("Community of the Exalted Women") is the umbrella organization for women. Within this umbrella organization, the “Party of Free Women in Kurdistan” (PAJK) is responsible for ideology and the “Union of Free Women” (YJA) is responsible for social issues. The female combat units are called YJA STAR . The PKK youth association is called Komalên Ciwan .

Within the Kurdish movement, women form an important basis for mobilization. In the Kurdish villages up until then, women had led a relatively separate life from the outside world, following the rules of traditional roles and assignments. In the PKK movement, however, women should be given equal rights to men. Double heads with one woman and one man each have been introduced at all political levels. They took part in demonstrations, vigils , protests in front of the prisons and petitions . They worked in prison support associations, set up solidarity and district committees, and young women in particular joined the PKK guerrillas in a women's army by the thousands. Since the early 1990s, women have been the protagonists of resistance actions, have assumed a central role in the PKK's contemporary resistance myth and have begun to function as “role models” for the resistance. The mobilization of women not only itself resulted in a significant general increase in PKK supporters and combat strength. The presence of significant numbers of women in the guerrillas also diminished the appeal and power of traditional values ​​such as male dominance in society.

While the external perception of the Kurdish question often gives the impression that the politico-military struggle against the Turkish military and the Turkish government is in the foreground of the Kurdish movement, the Kurdish-activist side also creates a political-social level of the Kurdish movement stressed. According to this, the question of the "liberation of women as women" (Brauns & Kiechle, 2010) should have a particularly high priority, but is masked by the fight against the Turkish state and state repression. A subordinate position of women in reports on the position of women in Islamic countries is often derived exclusively from the prevailing ideology of Islam , but the historical, social and cultural background is ignored. On the other hand, the Kurdish movement speaks of a "triple oppression" of women. According to the activists, these three levels of oppression of women should be seen as belonging together and not separate from one another. They consist, firstly, of oppression by the Turkish state on the basis of Kurdish ethnicity, secondly, in the exploitation of the landowners and the prevailing economy resulting from feudalism and capitalism , and thirdly, in the traditional oppression of the female sex in Kurdish society.

According to Aliza Marcus, one third of the PKK's armed forces in 1993 were women. The increase in the recruitment of women coincided with the fact that Abdullah Öcalan took a stronger verbal position for women's rights . In the political education of women guerrillas Turkish and Syrian Kurds is reportedly taught, for example, that by 6000 years past the start of the Sumerians -Herrschaft in Mesopotamia , the matriarchy by patriarchy had been replaced. Classical texts from the European women's movement, such as the content of Clara Zetkin's or Simone de Beauvoir's works , therefore played no role in the PKK training.

The military arm

Logo of the ARGK and the HPG
ERNK logo

The PKK's military arm was initially called Hêzên Rizgariya Kurdistan (Kurdistan Freedom Forces, HRK). At the 3rd Congress in 1986, it was renamed Artêşa Rizgariya Gelê Kurdistan (People's Liberation Army of Kurdistan, ARGK). The ARGK was transferred to the Hêzên Parastina Gel (People's Defense Forces, HPG) in 2000 .

The political arm

On March 21, 1985, the founding of the Eniya Rizgariya Netewa Kurdistan ( National Liberation Front of Kurdistan , ERNK) as a political organization was announced. In June 2004 the name was changed to Civata Demokratîk a Kurdistan (full name: "Coordination of Kurdish Democratic Society in Europe").

Further sub-organizations

The PKK is organized through a large number of sub-organizations.

  • The "Confederation of Kurdish Associations in Europe" ( KON-KURD , Konfederasyona Komelên Kurd Li Avrupa ) is the legal organizational structure of the PKK in Europe. Its members are the various federations of the Kurdish associations in the respective countries. In Germany the member federation is called YEK-KOM ( Yekitîya Komalên Kurd li Elmanya ). The individual clubs belong to this federation.
  • The " Association of Students from Kurdistan " ( Yekitîya Xwendevkarên Kurdistan , YXK) is considered to be closely related to the PKK.
  • Furthermore, religiously oriented part of organizations exist Sunnis (HIK), for Alevis (KAB) and Yazidis (YEK) and organizations for teachers (YMC), lawyers (YHK) and writer (YNK).
  • The Association of Kurdish Associations in Austria (FEYKOM) is a member of KON-KURD and openly sympathizes with the PKK.
  • The employers' association KARSAZ is also associated with the PKK.

The media

The following media are classified as PKK-related:

  • Roj TV : TV broadcaster based in Denmark
  • Yeni Özgür Politika ("New Free Politics"): predominantly Turkish-language daily newspaper based in Neu-Isenburg
  • Firatnews Agency (Kurdish Ajansa Nûçeyan a Firatê , ANF): Turkish-language news agency
  • Serxwebûn ("Independence"): Monthly newspaper and central strategic body of the organization
  • Ciwanên Azad ("Free Youth"): trilingual monthly magazine for the youth organization of the PKK
  • Newaya Jin: women's magazine
  • Mezopotamien Verlag und Vertrieb GmbH , based in Neuss
  • Mir Multimedia , based in Neuss

history

Settlement areas of the Kurds according to CIA 2002

The founding of the PKK coincided with a time of political radicalization in the 1970s, when left-wing Turkish organizations and illegal Kurdish organizations were fighting against right-wing extremists such as the Gray Wolves , but there were also armed clashes among themselves that took the form of civil war . In Ankara , Kurdish students like Abdullah Öcalan were initially active in associations such as AYÖD (University Association Ankara), which can be assigned to the spectrum of Dev-Genç (revolutionary youth). From 1973, a group called the Kürdistan Devrimcileri (Kurdistan Revolutionaries) formed around Abdullah Öcalan . The armed units were also known as UKO ( Ulusal Kurtuluş Ordusu - National Liberation Army), and the term Apocular (follower of Apo, short for Abdullah) was mostly used in popular parlance and the media . In 1974 the first actions were carried out. In 1975 members of the Kürdistan Devrimcileri traveled through various cities in Eastern Anatolia to win supporters for their national idea and to carry out the first armed actions. As a result, the movement was able to expand to various cities in Turkey by 1978.

Founding of an organization and first years

On November 27, 1978, Öcalan and 24 colleagues founded the PKK in the village of Ziyaret near Lice in the Diyarbakır province . The goal of the Marxist-Leninist oriented organization was to achieve a revolution through a guerrilla war and then to found a Kurdish state of its own. A double oppression was seen as the central problem of Kurdistan: national oppression by the Turkish state and the imperialist powers that support it, as well as the suppression of democracy by the feudal inner-Kurdish structures. The fight against national oppression was given priority. Workers, poor peasants and the Kurdish youth should be the bearers of the Kurdish revolution.

From the very beginning, the PKK focused on militant actions and tried to build a resistance movement against the Kurdish landowners and the ruling Kurdish leaders. In 1979 there were clashes between different Kurdish tribes in the Siverek - Hilvan region in the province of Şanlıurfa . The PKK intervened in favor of dispossessed Aghas, since it already regarded their opponents as enemies. Several hundred people were killed in the fighting that followed.

As a result of the second military coup in Turkey in 1980 , supporters and numerous cadres of the PKK were imprisoned. Some of the fighters and the remaining party leadership withdrew to reorganization in Syrian- controlled areas of Lebanon . The PKK resumed its activities in 1982.

The party congresses

  • First party congress between July 15 and 26, 1981 on the Syrian-Lebanese border: self-criticism led to temporary cooperation with other left organizations.
  • 2nd Congress between August 20 and 25, 1982 in Syria near the border with Jordan: The HRK ( Hezen Rızgariya Kürdistan - Kurdistan Liberation Unit ) was founded and it was decided to start armed struggle at the beginning of 1984. This happened on August 15, 1984 with attacks on the district towns of Eruh (Dihê) and Şemdinli (Semzînan).
  • 3rd Congress between October 26th and 30th, 1986 in Lebanon. It was decided to expand the armed struggle and replaced the HRK by the ARGK ( Arteşe Rızgariye Gele Kürdistan - People's Liberation Army of Kurdistan ). The political wing ERNK ( Eniya Rızgariya Netewa Kürdistan - National Liberation Front of Kurdistan ) was founded on March 21, 1985 to provide support .
  • The 4th Congress took place from December 26th to 31st, 1990 in Northern Iraq . Preparatory steps for a national parliament have been taken. Some of the previously punished “ dissidents ” were rehabilitated as part of a comprehensive self-criticism by the party.
  • At the 5th Congress, which took place between January 8 and 27, 1995, a new party program was adopted. The creation of a new state structure was sought under the concept of “formation of the people's power”.
  • The Party's 6th Congress coincided with the capture of Abdullah Ocalan and was held between January 19 and February 16, 1999 in the Kandil Mountains of northern Iraq. To protest against the "plot" (the " kidnapping " of the chairman of the PKK), suicide bombings and mass demonstrations were to be carried out.

After Öcalan's imprisonment

In his defense speech, Öcalan called for peace and dialogue and called on the armed forces to withdraw behind the borders of Turkey. The feared civil war did not materialize. Instead, the Kurdish guerrillas largely withdrew from Turkey and set up the so-called Medya Defense Areas in northern Iraq. As a result of the relaxation in the meantime, the state of emergency (OHAL) in southeastern Turkey was lifted in 2002 after several years .

Logo of the KADEK
Kongra gel logo
Logo of the KKK

Between January 2 and 23, 2000, the party's 7th congress took place in the Kandil Mountains in northern Iraq with the participation of 380 to 400 members of the organization. The goal of finding a solution to the Kurdish questions within Turkey's existing borders was formulated openly. The ARGK was replaced by the HPG ( Hêzên Parastina Gel - People's Defense Units). Since the PKK was included on the international list of terrorist organizations, it was decided at the 8th Congress between April 4 and 10, 2002 to rename it to KADEK ( Kongreya-Azadiya Demokratika Kürdistan - Freedom and Democracy Congress Kurdistan). Abdullah Öcalan became its honorary chairman. The KADEK was dissolved at its 2nd Congress on November 6th and KONGRA-GEL (Kurdistan People's Congress) was founded.

In 2004 there were divisions within the PKK. Osman Öcalan , the brother of Abdullah Öcalan, left the PKK camp in the northern Iraqi Kandil Mountains in May 2004 and fled with other leadership members to the care of the northern Iraqi Kurds in Mosul , where they began to build the Patriotic Democratic Party (PWD) . The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) reorganized in April 2005 after declaring itself dissolved in 2002. From August 21 to 30, 2008, their 10th Party Congress took place.

The Democratic confederalism is a theory of Abdullah Ocalan, which was adopted by the party at a meeting between 4 and 21 May of 2005. It is a model of society inspired by Murray Bookchin . An important catchphrase here is the “democratic, ecological and gender-liberal society”. The system also aims to overcome state-fixated and nation-state structures. The declaration - as it was published in Ögzür Politika from June 6th to 9th, 2005 and modified in October 2007 - provides for the formation of structures typical of the state: own citizenship, own army, own jurisdiction, own parliament, own Economic and financial structures and its own flag. Confederalism is part of libertarian communalism .

At the 3rd General Assembly, chaired by Mustafa Karasu, it was decided to bring the KKK / TK (Kurdistan Democratic Confederalism / Turkey Coordination) into being. At the general assembly between April 17 and 22, 2006, the Turkey Coordination (TK) in the camps in Northern Iraq was renamed the Turkey Parliament (TM). At a meeting between November 3rd and 5th, 2006, which was attended by a total of 237 delegates, it was decided that similar structures should be set up in Iran , Iraq and Syria in parallel to the Turkey Parliament .

The agreement ( sözleşme ), which is regarded as the constitution of the Union of the Communities of Kurdistan, was adopted at a congress from May 16-22 , 2007. The KCK is therefore a “democratic, social and confederal system”. It has members, its own judiciary, leads the armed struggle, has central and local organizations and tries to influence local administrations. It recognizes Abdullah Ocalan as the leader. The ideological force is the PKK (Article 36 of the Agreement). After this date, the PKK / KONGRA-GEL was reorganized according to the principles of the agreement.

Ideology and culture

When it was founded, the PKK did not differ ideologically from other Kurdish Marxist organizations. Kurdistan was viewed as a semi-feudal and semi-capitalist colony of Turkey. The main goal was the revolution and the creation of an independent Kurdish state, an idea that was - at least officially - abandoned in 1993. The main difference, however, was the PKK's attitude towards violence.

The question of violence

The first deviator was murdered in the formation phase of the organization. Abdullah Öcalan, Cemil Bayık and Şahin Dönmez decided on Celal Aydın's death in 1977, as Dönmez would later confess when he led the police to the body. According to Sakine Cansız in her autobiography, Ali Gündüz was the murderer. The organisation's party platform says on violence:

"A third characteristic of this revolution is that on the way to the mobilization of the broad forces of the people it will triumph over a long struggle [...] The methods of the struggle are necessarily based to a large extent on violence."

The PKK's manifesto on violence, published in 1978, says:

"In a country in which the agent and secret service organizations are woven like a network, the revolutionary tactics are determined by the fact that in the first stage a merciless struggle must be waged against this agent structure and secret service organization."

Personality cult

The imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan

The personality cult around Abdullah Öcalan is seen as characteristic of the PKK . Since the early 1980s, the PKK leader had begun to develop and apply his " charismatic rule " with more power, which, according to Kurdish expert Ali Kemal Özcan, was "an effective source of motivation both within the party organization and among the Kurdish masses" lay. In the opinion of Kurdologist Martin van Bruinessen, the PKK was "undoubtedly the most proletarian (according to their slanders, rag-proletarian ) of the Kurdish organizations". Most of its members and sympathizers were very young and poorly educated. The pronounced leader cult around Abdullah Öcalan as Serok Apo ("Leader Apo") is traced back to the plebeian base of the PKK, as are other lasting formative elements of the PKK's political practice - such as the organization's tendency towards monolithism, which opposes the collective Priority given to the individual , millenarian expectations and physical militancy . The slogan given by Öcalan “It is not the individual that is at issue, but the class. It's not about the moment, it's about history. ”Is seen as an expression of the PKK's militancy against external persecution and actual or supposed betrayal from within.

For his followers, Öcalan should not only be regarded as a party leader - abstractly referred to as önderlik (German: “the leadership”) in PKK jargon - but also as a philosopher and prophet . Öcalan himself had declared in 1982: “A person represents the new upright walk, practically the resurrection of a nation. My role is indeed that of a prophet who speaks to a slave, mercilessly oppressed people. ”After his capture, Öcalan addressed this equation with the prophets of Islam or Christianity . In connection with his home region Urfa , which is considered to be the birthplace of the prophet Abraham , Öcalan called the PKK a "modern version of past prophetic movements". Despite reference to the contemporary concept of the nation and socialism, he had at no time "embraced the spirit of the 20th century", but was rather shaped by the village culture and the culture of Urfa than by more universal values.

In the western media, the personality cult around Öcalan was sometimes compared with the Stalin cult of the 1930s to 1950s in the Soviet Union . Pro-Kurdish activists objected that the followers of Öcalan would voluntarily revere Öcalan in contrast to the personality cult prescribed by Stalin himself and, in contrast to the situation under Stalin, suffered state persecution in Turkey, where only for shouting, because of their worship of the Serok Apo Pro-Öcalan slogans threatened long prison sentences. In Germany too, there were regular arrests due to Öcalan flags at demonstrations. In his defense, Öcalan himself denied having ordered the personality cult: “Neither the PKK nor the Kurds in general have I ever ordered to follow me,” said Öcalan. “Because there was nobody but me, I was assigned a role that was arguably more difficult to fulfill than the part of Jesus two thousand years ago. I was also assigned the role of the blacksmith Kawa and a transmission of the meaning of the holiness of the prophet Abraham in our presence. The great expectations of salvation and happiness of the classic folk legends were projected into me. "

The cult of Abdullah Öcalan is said to have intensified considerably during the years of his imprisonment on İmralı . While the generation of the PKK leadership still knew the party chairman personally, for the new generation of young people who regularly fought in street fights with the police after reports of Ocalan's abuse, he was already "removed to an almost mystical figure that can no longer be grasped by human standards" , judged the pro-Kurdish authors Brauns and Kiechle 2010.

Martyrs cult

The PKK declares all of its dead members martyrs. Their survivors - in some areas the mothers and widows of dead PKK fighters can be identified by their white headscarves - are often given preferential treatment and are treated with honor.

The martyrdom of the PKK for its members who fell in battle, like the veneration of Öcalan, takes on an almost religious character. In Kurdish cultural associations there are real altars that are decorated with the party flag and pictures of the leader and the martyrs. In connection with the cult of martyrs, the self-immolation of young women, which occurred repeatedly during the 1990s and which also occurred several times in Germany, were viewed as self-sacrifices by PKK supporters.

Martyrs, Newroz and PKK in the national myth

The Newroz Festival became the most significant day of the year in Kurdish political activism in Turkey, and during the 1990s large crowds gathered to celebrate and demonstrate on March 21. The public celebrations and mass demonstrations made Newroz the day of national resistance, on which not only many individual activities of resistance but also of self-sacrifice took place, which enabled the PKK to describe these acts as part of Kurdistan’s long struggle for freedom and depict. This put the PKK's struggle in the context of a longer timeline and allowed the PKK to present itself as the embodiment of the national struggle of the Kurds. A mainstay of the PKK's discourse became the resistance in Diyarbakır Prison , the key event of which began with the suicide of Mazlum Doğan on March 21, 1982 ( Newroz ) as a declared protest against continued torture and repression. The resistance continued with the self-immolation of four PKK members on May 18, 1982, culminating in the " death fast " which began on July 14, 1982 and resulted in the deaths of four other PKK leaders in September 1982. Doğan's death was first portrayed in the Kurdish political magazine Serxwebûn as part of the concerted efforts of the Kemalist regime to exterminate all Kurdish political prisoners, while the statement on March 21, 1983 commemorating his death for one year saw him as the “contemporary kawa ” and his suicide as an act of resistance. In the following articles to commemorate the resistance, the importance of the actions of the leaders was focused on and their resistance was described as "deliberate political action". In addition to guerrilla warfare, acts of self-immolation were repeatedly carried out in the early 1990s and presented as examples of “actions of extraordinary resistance”. The beginning was made by the medical student Zekiye Alkan from Diyarbakır , who set herself on fire on March 21 ( Newroz ) 1990 on the city wall. Corresponding acts by Rahşan Demirel in Izmir in 1992 and “Berîvan” ( Nilgül Yıldırım ) and “Ronahî” ( Bedriye Taş ) in Germany in 1994 followed. These self-immolations were described as sacred acts of resistance and sacrifice for the sake of national freedom, these being Acts of sacrifice and heroism should take place on the day of the Newroz festival. In the early 1990s, women were the main actors in the self-immolation and “heroic” and “sacrificial” actions. In addition, the “heroic deeds” and “victims” of female guerrillas began to play a central role in the representation of the PKK's contemporary resistance myth. The death of Gülnaz Karataş (Beritan) on October 25, 1992, who is said to have thrown herself from a mountain ledge during the PKK's war with Iraqi Kurds in order to avoid capture after realizing that she was caught, received sustained attention could not escape the attacking Peshmerga of the KDP . Beritan's act was portrayed as an act of utter heroism and devotion to struggle, and was used extensively by the PKK as the embodiment of the PKK's spirit of resistance. Similarly, the death of Zeynep Kınacı (Zilan), who carried out the first suicide attack against Turkish troops in Tunceli , has been claimed to be the embodiment of the PKK's spirit of resistance.

During the commemorative events of these methods of resistance and in statements published on their anniversaries, these individual acts of resistance and sacrifice were described as a catalyst for widespread resistance. For example, the suicide of Mazlum Doğan has been described as the event that triggered the resistance in Diyarbakır prison and the PKK's guerrilla warfare. Similarly, the PKK described the self-immolation of Zekiye Alkane as the catalyst of an extended period of active resistance and serhildan (popular uprising) in the urban centers of the region, in which many ordinary Kurds participated. Despite the improbability of the existence of a strict causal link, as emphasized in the PKK narrative, the significance of his claim was that individual persons and their methods of resistance were constructed as "exemplary" for the resistance of the PKK and that individual acts were used to to motivate others to join the resistance. The design of these examples in the PKK's discourse and the practices of remembrance associated with its “heroic resistance” were primarily aimed at motivating ordinary Kurds to practice such acts of heroism and self-sacrifice for the movement and the Kurdish struggle.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the resistance of leading PKK members was consistently and extensively discussed in numerous articles in the political Kurdish magazines Serxwebûn and Berxwedan , as well as at the political and public gatherings that commemorate the anniversaries of these martyr events their resistance took place. The history of the resistance of the leading PKK members and the earliest martyrs of their struggle has been widely disseminated and passed on through numerous commemorative events and practices. It is common practice in Kurdish community centers across Europe to display pictures of both leaders and the earliest martyrs of the PKK, particularly Mazlum Doğan and others who died during the resistance in Diyarbakır prison, as well as Mahsun Korkmaz, the first Commander of the PKK military forces who died in March 1986. Extensive obituaries for the early PKK martyrs and other guerrillas often appear in the publications of the PKK. The memorial practices, especially the obituaries and life stories of the guerrillas in the Serxwebûn and Berxwedan magazines, romanticized guerrilla life . In the 1990s, many people attended the funeral services of the PKK guerrillas in Turkey.

The representation of the resistance was not limited to political discourse, but other creative and artistic forms such as music and poetry were also used to convey the message about the meaning of the resistance in the Diyarbakır prison. Artistic reconstructions of the resistance campaigns appeared on numerous posters . A poem published in Serxwebûn for the first time in 1982 with the title Ben İnsandım (Turkish for: “I have been a person”) by the high-ranking PKK member Ali Haydar Kaytan tells of the life and struggle of the PKK cadre Haki Karer , who died on May 18, 1977 was killed and is regarded as the first “marryt” of the PKK (although PKK member Aydın Gül is said to have been killed by the group “ Halkın Kurtuluşu ” in 1977 ). In addition, the stories of resistance methods were told in the music of the Koma Berxwedan group from the 1980s on , and by other music groups later in the 1990s. The contemporary resistance myth, according to political scientist Cengiz Gunes, formed the center of the revival of Kurdish culture in Turkey, while the PKK resistance formed the main theme of the narrative told by the musical group Koma Berxwedan and many other groups and musicians in their resistance music. Songs commemorating the resistance and the victims of the innumerable PKK “heroes” and “heroines” were frequent in resistance music. For example, a popular song by Hozan Dilgeş , Li Mêrdine Li Bagoke , tells the story of a battle between the ARGK and the Turkish military in the Bagok Mountains near Nusaybin on April 1, 1988, despite the heavy losses of the particularly young and inexperienced PKK forces one of their "epic battles" is idealized. In a similar way to dealing with the "exploits" committed by early PKK members in prison, the song underscores the heroism and self-sacrifice of the guerrillas who fought and died in the battle. The music played a significant role in the practical manifestation of the PKK's national liberation discourse by telling the story of the PKK's struggle and resistance through a medium that was accessible to many people. The cultural display of the struggle through music enabled the PKK to reach wider Kurdish communities. To this end, resistance music used or modified popular folk song styles that were familiar to broad Kurdish circles of the population and were used in folk dances, adding a performative aspect to the memorial practices for the martyrs.

The PKK's contemporary resistance myth was used extensively in the mobilization process, with images of the early PKK martyrs and those of their female fighters frequently used in PKK publications. Overall, the significance of the new resistance myth for mobilizing Kurds for the PKK was that it strengthened the PKK's discourse and increased the PKK's credibility among Kurds. The importance of the guerrilla war was, among other things, that it gave the resistance a daily character and convinced many that the PKK was able to enforce independence for the Kurds.

Selected martyrs of the PKK

"Martyrs" that are particularly significant for the organization are:

  • Hakkı Karer (also: Haki Karer), a founding member of Turkish origin, was shot in a café in Gaziantep before the PKK was officially founded. The murder of the PKK leadership cadre Karer by the competing Kurdish group on May 18, 1977 is said to have been the decisive factor in consolidating the PKK structures by founding a party. The PKK is said to have reacted to the murder of Karer by the competing Kurdish organization with the murder of its leader Alattin Kaplan (or: Alaaddin Kapan).
  • Mazlum Doğan , General Secretary of the PKK, committed suicide while in custody. The Central Committee member hanged himself on March 21, 1982 (Newroz Day) in the military prison of Diyarbakır . Since his suicide, he has been honored by the PKK as the “Kawa of our days” based on the heroic blacksmith from the Newroz legend.
  • Kemal Pir , Mehmet Hayri Durmuş, Akif Yılmaz and Ali Çiçek died in 1982 on the death fast that began on July 14, 1982. Kemal Pir (of Turkish origin) and Mehmet Hayri Durmuş are said to have been among the central "martyrs" of the PKK, whose pictures have a place of honor in Kurdish clubs and living rooms of patriotic families.
  • Mahsum Korkmaz , alias Agit, commander of the PKK, was killed in battle or by his own comrades in 1986. From 1996, a permanent training camp in the Syrian- controlled Bekaa plain near the village of Helve was named after him, which could be built because PKK units fought on the side of the PLO after the Israeli army marched into Lebanon in May 1982, to smash the Palestinian guerrilla organizations.
  • Gülnaz Karataş , alias Beritan, threw himself from a rock in 1992 to avoid being captured by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party .
  • Suicide bomber Zeynep Kınacı , aka Zilan, blew herself up on June 30, 1996 in the midst of a military parade in Tunceli (Dersim). Zilan, who was 25 at the time of the crime, was subsequently proclaimed the “goddess of freedom” by the PKK. Allegedly, as a result, many Kurdish parents are said to have given their daughters the name Zilan. In Tunceli, a woman statue officially dedicated to human rights is to commemorate the suicide bombing on the site of the attack.
  • Halim Dener , under a false name Ayhan Eser, a young PKK activist, was fatally shot by a police officer on June 30, 1994 in Hanover during a night fight.

Other selected examples of people venerated as martyrs by the PKK:

  • Hüseyin Çelebi, killed in October 1992. Since he was a writer and poet, the YXK awards the Hüseyin Çelebi Prize for literature every year.
  • Andrea Wolf , German radical left activist from the RAF. Killed in 1998 with around 40 other PKK members.
  • Engin Sincer , alias Erdal, came from Germany and died in 2003 under unknown circumstances.
  • Uta Schneiderbanger , German political activist. Fatal accident in a car accident in Turkey in 2005.
  • Layla Wali Hasan, aka Viyan Soran, burned herself to death in 2006.

Cultural activities

Initially, the PKK's cultural activities consisted of the music of the Koma Berxwedan group (German: "Gruppe Resistance" or "Resistance Group"), which was formed in Germany in 1981 to encourage Kurds in the European diaspora to fight movement through music convey. In addition, the members of the Koma Berxwedan group - also in Germany - played a leading role in the establishment of the PKK organization Hunerkom (artists' association) in 1983, which pursued the goal of promoting the development and revival of Kurdish culture. At the beginning, the Hunerkom activities took place within the cultural and community centers in Germany, France and the Netherlands . With the quantitative increase in these activities and the growth of the Kurdish communities in other European countries, there was both a spread of this cultural activity and its qualitative change in the direction of higher professionalism. In 1994 Hunerkom adopted the name Kürt Kültür Ve Sanat Akademisi (Turkish for: "Kurdish Academy for Culture and the Arts"). Music was an important aspect of the renewal and development of Kurdish culture and was an important medium through which the struggle of the PKK was conveyed by the songs that were sung by the groups that were founded told of the forms of resistance that the PKK had used since the 1980s. The group Koma Berxwedan established itself as the most important instrument for conveying resistance music and became an integral part of the struggle of the Kurdish movement. Although she mainly organized her performances and musical activity in Europe, her MCs and CDs managed to reach the Kurds in Turkey through hidden channels.

After the Turkish restrictions on the public use of the Kurdish language were loosened in 1991, another important Kurdish cultural center, the Navenda Çanda Mezopotamya (NÇM) or Turkish Mezopotamya Kültür Merkezi (MKM; German: "Mesopotamian Cultural Center"), was founded in Istanbul. which similarly pursued the goal of promoting the development and renewal of Kurdish culture. Within the MKM and its affiliated branches, which were founded in other important cities in Turkey during the 1990s, further music groups were formed whose songs and music dealt with resistance issues similar to the music of the Berxwedan coma . These groups included Koma Çiya , Koma Azad , Koma Mizgîn , Koma Asman , Koma Amed , Agirê Jiyan , Koma Rewşen , Koma Şirvan and Koma Rojhilat . In addition, there were numerous independent musicians such as Şivan Perwer , Ciwan Haco , Nizamettin Ariç , Hozan Dilgeş , Aram Tigran and others who also produced Kurdish resistance, popular and folk music. Another aspect of the PKK's cultural activities organized by the Hunerkom in Europe was the popularization of Kurdish folk dances. Almost every Kurdish cultural center in Europe organized numerous folk dance groups and made folk dances a significant activity in which many ordinary Kurdish people took part. From 1987 onwards, Hunerkom began to organize the annual Kurdish cultural festival Mîhrîcan, which organized performances and competitions in which various folk dance groups took part representing numerous areas of Kurdistan. These festivals fulfilled an important function for intensifying the interactions between Kurds from different regions and promoted their cultural integration and understanding. In a similar way, musical performances were performed at many cultural events organized by the ERNK in various European cities, which offered the Kurds an environment in which they could consume Kurdish cultural offers.

Range of activities

PKK activities by region (status approx. 2002)
target activity Turkey Northern Iraq Western Europe
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Drug trafficking transit transit Destination
Smuggling crime origin origin

Armed fight

From the beginning, the armed struggle was at the heart of PKK policy. At the beginning of the fighting in August 1984 there were reportedly 300 armed militants. By 1990 around 200,000 soldiers, 70,000 police officers, 25,000 Kurdish village guards and 1,500 anti-terrorism specialists fought against 2,500 PKK militants. The conflict claimed around 30,000 lives and millions of displaced persons on both sides of the conflict by 1999.

The PKK claims to have had around 10,000 guerrillas at all times.

The armed conflict reached new dimensions in the 1990s. If official information was given by the end of 1990 of 574 members of the Turkish armed forces killed, 1,068 PKK militants "arrested dead" and 1,045 civilian victims, the number of PKK fighters killed between August 15, 1984 and May 30, 1999 was 18,348 specified. The PKK gave the following information on the fatalities in the war from 1984 to 1999: 42,459 dead on the part of the Turkish state (soldiers, police officers, village guards, collaborators, etc.); 6,671 deaths on the part of the PKK. In addition, there are 9,000 to 10,000 civilians and around 2,000 victims in fighting among Kurdish organizations in Iraq.

Other sources such as the human rights foundation TIHV or the human rights association IHD account for 17,884 deaths on both sides and 3,717 civilian victims in the 1990s. The 1990s also saw most of the violations of human rights, particularly the right to life . Between 1990 and 2000, the TIHV recorded 1,221 extra-legal executions, 1,748 (political) murders by undetected perpetrators, 214 enforced disappearances and 461 deaths in police custody or prisons. while the IHD spoke of 33,635 victims of political violence for a period of 32 years (1980–2012) in March 2012. 6,904 of these were civilian victims.

Despite all the military operations of the Turkish armed forces and losses on the part of the PKK, the number of active fighters and support for the PKK in the population increased. Initially there were only a few hundred guerrilla fighters, in 1994 a NATO magazine spoke of at least 20,000 fighters who had the impassable mountain regions completely under control, other regions of the Kurdish provinces at least at night. Despite the many deaths, the PKK has no problem with young people. For every dead “ martyr ”, new ones jump into the breach, recruited not only from Turkey, but also from the Kurdish regions of Iraq, Iran and Syria. The methods of a counter-guerrilla tactic, which ranged from the expulsion of villagers who did not want to fight against the PKK, to the imprisonment of Kurdish politicians and the murder of PKK sympathizers (so-called patriots, yurtsever ), intimidated the population, but at the same time it made sure that the PKK received increased numbers.

Attacks on civilian targets

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, PKK fighters attacked Kurdish villages several times. Examples are the Pınarcık massacre , the Açıkyol massacre or the Kılıçkaya massacre . Here, the majority of the men had joined the village protection system . Cemil Bayik , founding member of the PKK, said in an interview that no one who was responsible for the attacks on village guards is still with the PKK today. However, Bayık was the commander of the Kurdistan People's Liberation Army , which carried out these attacks.

In March 1987, the teacher Ramazan Adigüzel was shot dead in Hanover as a member of the rival organization KOMKAR. On March 21, 1990, PKK fighters shot and killed the occupants of a vehicle they had stopped on the road between Elazığ and Kovancılar. Nine engineers and one worker were the victims. On June 10, 1990, a PKK unit attacked village guards in Çevrimli village in Şırnak province, killing 27 people, including 12 children and seven women. On July 14, 1991, PKK fighters attacked villages in Çağlayancerit and Pazarcık, killing a total of 9 people. On July 22, 1991, PKK fighters killed 19 vehicle occupants in a robbery in Midyat. On December 25, 1991 PKK fighters attacked the Çetinkaya shop in Bakırköy with Molotov cocktails. Eleven people were killed in the fire, including seven women and a child. On June 22, 1992, PKK fighters attacked the house of two village guards in the village of Seki in Gercüş and killed ten people. On June 11, 1992, PKK fighters stopped a minibus in Tatvan and shot 13 inmates. On October 1, 1992, PKK fighters attacked the village of Cevizdalı in Bitlis, killing 30 people. On July 5, 1993 , PKK fighters killed 33 residents of the Başbağlar village in Kemaliye. In the massacre in Yolaç , PKK fighters shot and killed those who allegedly belonged to the warring Kurdish organization Hizbullah . Murders of primary school teachers were part of the PKK's strategy, particularly in the 1990s. According to the Turkish Human Rights Foundation, the PKK killed a total of 128 teachers between 1984 and 1994. As a result, there were massive dismissals of teachers and schools were closed.

A number of other attacks on civilian targets were carried out by Teyrêbazên Azadîya Kurdistan (Freedom Falcon Kurdistan, TAK), classified as a terrorist arm of the PKK . The extent to which the relationships between the PKK and TAK are developed is controversial.

In June 2017, the 23-year-old elementary school teacher Necmettin Yılmaz was kidnapped by members of the PKK while driving to his place of birth in Gümüşhane and was finally murdered with a shot in the head because the PKK people saw him as a kind of collaborator as a teacher.

At the end of June 2017, Orhan Mercan, the deputy district chairman of the AKP in the small Turkish town of Lice , also in south-east Turkey, was murdered by PKK people.

In summer 2018, the 46-year-old Kurdish shepherd Mevlüt Bengi was shot in the head because, according to the PKK, he had betrayed the Kurdish struggle for freedom. The AKP member was scheduled as an election observer for the parliamentary elections in Turkey in 2018 . He had informed the local authorities about movements of the PKK troops that he had noticed while grazing his sheep in the mountains. As a result, two PKK fighters were killed in a battle with Turkish armed forces. The shepherd's body was found tied to a power pole near Doğubeyazıt . The PKK's women's combat group expressly assumed joint responsibility for both the execution of Bengis and the murder of Mercan.

On September 20, 2018, the PKK killed two Kurdish civilians.

Defending the PKK on allegations of attacks on civilian targets

Cemil Bayık , a founding member of the PKK, said in an interview with the BBC that the PKK considers attacks on civilian targets to be false. He speaks out in favor of setting up neutral truth commissions to check what the PKK has actually done and what has not. Attacks on security forces, however, are not condemned because it is war and they (the Turks) also fought. When asked whether he would call on the TAK not to attack civilian targets, he replied: “Kurdish villages are being destroyed and burned down, there are many civilian victims. Your culture is being trampled on. Thousands are forced to flee. If the TAK carries out attacks on civilians under these conditions, the people will be kind to them. "

Attacks on security forces

After the suicide attack in Kurdish Suruç by the Islamic State (IS), in which 34 young people died, supporters of the PKK murdered two Turkish police officers in mid-2015, whom they accused of cooperating with the Islamist terrorists. However, Cemil Bayık denies that the PKK itself carried out the crime. In July 2015, the Turkish armed forces carried out air strikes on PKK positions in the Kandil mountains in Iraq, also under the pretext of fighting the Islamic State. The PKK thereupon lifted the ceasefire that it had initiated in March 2013, resulting in deaths in attacks in Turkey on both sides. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Turkish government were also accused by non-Kurdish observers of actually negligent action against IS and thus helped to facilitate the attacks on Kurds in Reyhanlı and Suruç .

Suicides and suicide bombings

Since the 1980s, especially at the Nouruz Festival, there have been repeated self-immolation by PKK supporters, fighters and cadres. One of the first high-profile suicides was the death of Mazlum Doğan in Diyarbakır in 1982 . During Kurdish protests in Germany on March 19, 1994, two women set themselves on fire in Mannheim. One died, the other was recovered, seriously injured. The self-immolations reached a climax when Öcalan was arrested and imprisoned. The last time he was burned was the high-ranking PKK member Leyla Walî Hasan (alias: Viyan Soran).

After his capture, Abdullah Ocalan is said to have banned self-immolation and other self-sacrifice on the grounds that he needed his followers alive.

In the mid-1990s, the PKK also resorted to suicide bombings. In 1996, Guler Otaç (code name: Bermal), Zeynep Kınacı (code name: Zilan) and Leyla Kaplan (code name: Rewşen) blew themselves up, each tearing several people with them to their deaths. Suicide bombers are revered as martyrs. In publications by the youth organization of the PKK, suicide is portrayed as an act worth imitating.

Internal disputes

Murders and executions

In the 1980s and 1990s, the PKK cracked down on alleged or potential critics and rivals of Öcalan and against possible and suspected “traitors” with extreme severity. Martin van Bruinessen explained the internal violence with power struggles and also blamed the tendency to blind obedience for the violence against its own members. He wrote in the Middle East Report of July / August 1988 that the PKK was notorious for its brutal violence and political murders. Criticism of the party line is seen as treason. The PKK sensed traitors everywhere. Öcalan's best-known opponent was arrested and tortured in order to extort a confession and then he was murdered.

In 1995 the PKK admitted that in the 1980s and early 1990s there had been “mistakes, betrayals and setbacks” in which numerous members and even high cadre were liquidated as alleged traitors. While former leadership cadres and commanders, such as Selim Çürükkaya, who fled to Germany, or Şemdin Sakık , who was kidnapped in Turkish captivity , blame Öcalan for the murders, in return the latter accused them of forming gangs within the PKK and also suspected them of cooperation with the “ deep state” ". Öcalan also claims that such uncontrolled gangs within the PKK are responsible for the deaths of thousands of guerrilla fighters who were either shot as alleged traitors or "burned" by suicide squads. While the former PKK cadre Serdar alias Selahattin Çelik stated in his book Moving Mount Ararat (2002) that 2,000 people had been executed or murdered as “traitors” by the two opposing sides, Abdullah Öcalan allegedly told his lawyers in the summer of 2008 have claimed (as shown in the PKK monograph by the pro-Kurdish activists Brauns and Kiechle from 2010 with reference to an article in the pro-Kurdish daily Özgür Gündem from July 25, 2008) that there were a total of 15,000 PKK members through betrayal and Intrigues from within their own ranks have been murdered. At least three of the approximately 20 founding members of the PKK (Şahin Dönmez, Mehmet Turan and Mehmet Cahit Şener ) are among the people targeted by the PKK .

Former fighters report executions with the approval or on the orders of Öcalan. In particular, recruits who, as former students and young intellectuals, were not used to subordinating themselves to the party's strict regulations without criticism, like the guerrillas from peasant families who had come before them, were quickly accused of provocateurs because of critical statements. PKK fighters and even high-ranking cadres who had contradicted Öcalan's leadership style were also killed. Prominent victims of this procedure were, for example, Çetin Güngör , alias Semir , and later Mehmet Cahit Şener. Often it was apparently enough for a former PKK member to fall out of favor with Öcalan to make him “ outlawed ”.

In 1984 the dissident Zülfü Gök was shot in Rüsselsheim . In late 1984 or early 1985, Saime Aşkın was executed as a deviator . In 1986 the PKK had Dev-Yol member Kürşat Timuroğlu killed in Hamburg. In 1994, party leaders Duran Kalkan and Ali Haydar Kaytan were sentenced to several years imprisonment in Germany for their involvement in internal party murders. The party dissident Zülfü Gök was shot in Rüsselsheim in 1984. The Federal Court of Justice then issued an arrest warrant against Öcalan. The lawyer Mahmut Bilgili was kidnapped, tortured and killed in the Netherlands in 1987 for defying the orders of the PKK. Also in 1987, the guerrilla doctor Lamia Baksi was executed. In some cases, PKK commanders were also punished for carrying out Öcalan's orders. For example, the PKK commander Halil Kaya was executed in 1988 after Öcalan decided that someone should be held responsible for misconduct in connection with forced recruitment. Central Committee member Ali Ömürcan was accused of treason in 1993 and executed in Lebanon. Şahin Baliç was shot dead on the orders of Öcalan in 1990 because Öcalan made him for the death of his childhood friend and bodyguard Hasan Bindal, who had been killed by a ricochet during an exercise. Commander Cemal Işık (code name Hogır) escaped from the PKK in the summer of 1990, was sentenced to death in absentia and shot in Wuppertal in 1994. In 1990 the skeletonized body of the PKK dropout Abdullah Hoșgören was found in a forest near Wipperfürth. Central Council member Resul Altınok was arrested in 1992 and killed in 1994 in Lolan camp on direct orders from Öcalan. In 2002 Filiz Yerlikaya (alias Gulan) fell victim to an internal party murder plot. She was posthumously declared a martyr. The murder of the renegade members Kani Yılmaz (Faysal Dunlayıcı) and Sabri Tori (Serdar Kaya) in 2006 is also believed to be perpetrated by the PKK. All in all, it is assumed that there were many dozen victims. The massacres in Başbağlar and Yolaç with 33 and 10 victims are also attributed to the PKK.

Sexual relations within the party were punishable by death. According to Öcalan, these violate fundamental principles and are the death of warfare. In the PKK guerrillas, relationships between the sexes are strictly forbidden.

Internal party sanctions

The following sanctions and terms within the PKK in Northern Iraq became publicly known

  • Uygulama ("application"): An umbrella term for measures in the event of misconduct.
  • Tutuklama ("detention"): In the case of "adjustment disorders " (organizational jargon : yaşama gelmemek , yaşamı bozmak or katılım göstermemek ) or behavior that does not conform to the party , the arrest is made. Prominent members who have been temporarily detained include Ali Haydar Kaytan and Sakine Cansız .
  • Criticism and self-criticism : “Platforms” are created on which cadres have to publicly practice self-criticism. Those present can use the forum to criticize the person and their behavior. Sometimes it became a “court” with three “judges” and a “public prosecutor”.
  • Death sentence: In the event of alleged or suspected betrayal or sexual contact, a death sentence was imposed, which required Öcalan's consent. There are known cases in which death sentences were carried out as well as those in which they were suspended (example: Osman Öcalan ).
  • Emek süreci ("work activity phase "): This measure includes kitchen work, collecting wood, carrying loads, etc. For ZK member Hüseyin Özbey, the death penalty has been converted into a "work activity phase".

resources

Overall strength

In 2008 gave Federation of American scientists (, Federation of American Scientists, FAS) the number of combatants with 4,000 to 5,000 of which, were used 3000 to 3500 in northern Iraq.

Child soldiers

Several human rights organizations and the United States Department of State accuse the PKK of recruiting child soldiers. In 1998 the number of minors in the PKK was around 3,000, according to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. Around a tenth of them were women.

PKK organizations outside Turkey

Europe

According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the PKK is pursuing a “dual strategy” in Europe. She tries to hide her aggressive and militant demeanor in the Middle East with a basically peaceful image in Germany and Europe. Europe is seen as a “safe haven” for the PKK. She circumvents the prohibition of activity through restructuring and legal diversions through regional associations. This fact is used in particular for financing. The German Office for the Protection of the Constitution estimates that the PKK would have collected around 9 million euros in 2013 alone. Part of the money comes from membership fees and from events such as the annual “International Kurdistan Culture Festival”. The money will be used for local propaganda networks, but some will also be diverted to the Middle East. Although the organization tries to firmly anchor itself among the estimated 1.5 million Kurds in Europe, it actually only reaches a small number.

According to the EUROPOL- TE-SAT report for 2013, the PKK benefits from all phases of drug trafficking such as drug transport via Turkey to Europe, distribution and sales. Among other things, she collects "tax money" from drug dealers who cross the Turkish border.

According to the 2016 EUROPOL -TE-SAT report, the PKK did not carry out any terrorist attacks in the EU in 2015. The majority of the EU states consider the danger posed by the PKK to be low.

According to the United States Treasury Department , Zeyneddin Geleri, Cerkez Akbulut and Omer Boztepe are involved in the heroin trafficking in Moldova on behalf of the PKK and have therefore been designated as Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers (SDNTs), which allows US citizens to conduct any financial or commercial dealings with them forbids.

Germany
Since the PKK is banned in Germany, its logo may not be used in public either. During a demonstration in Frankfurt in April 2016, this banner had to be pasted over due to a police order.

The organization has been active in Germany since the early 1980s in the form of protest actions against the clashes between the PKK and the Turkish military. Bremen and Kiel are particularly important centers of the PKK. The first violent action occurred on June 24, 1993, when PKK supporters attacked the Turkish consulate general in Munich and took 20 hostages. Subsequently, a public declaration by Chancellor Kohl in favor of the "Kurdish cause" was demanded. On the same day there were 55 simultaneous violent actions by Kurdish extremists in more than 20 cities across Germany against Turkish diplomatic missions, travel agencies, banks and other institutions. In the following days there were another 25 attacks. It is estimated that around 600 people were involved in the actions. On November 4th of the same year there were again attacks. 59 attacks were carried out at the same time. Most of them were arson attacks on Turkish facilities in which a person was killed in a Turkish restaurant. The consequence of these acts of violence was a ban on the PKK and the ERNK from operating on November 26, 1993 by the Federal Minister of the Interior. In Germany, the ban affected the entire organization. Despite a declaration of non-violence by Öcalan, it was rated as a criminal organization in 1998 .

In the early 1990s, the PKK founded a brigade of around 30 German volunteers who took part in fighting on their side in Turkey and Iraq. Öcalan rated their combat strength as low, and after the killing of Andrea Wolf by Turkish soldiers, the brigade was disbanded. A well-known member, Eva Juhnke from Hamburg , was sentenced to 15 years in prison in Turkey.

On October 21, 2004, the Federal Court of Justice ruled that the management level should continue to be regarded as a criminal organization, but no longer the organization as a whole, which had refrained from politically motivated crimes such as occupying consulates since 2000.

The PKK meets its substantial financial needs with funds from Europe, among others. In Germany, this income consists of both donations and membership fees, as well as the proceeds from events and the sale of publications. In an article published in 2004, the journalist Michael Rubin assumed that the PKK was involved in drug smuggling in an international context, but according to the 2011 report on the protection of the Constitution, “there is no evidence of this in Germany”.

In Germany, the Federal Ministry of the Interior banned the PKK-related newspaper Özgür Politika on September 5, 2005 because it was "integrated into the overall organization of the PKK". However, the ban was lifted again by the Federal Administrative Court for formal reasons.

On July 8, 2008, three German mountaineers were kidnapped by Kurdish rebels in the eastern Turkish province of Ağrı . The leadership of the PKK distanced itself from the action, but at the same time linked a possible release of the hostages with the demand that the German government rethink its policy towards the Kurdistan Workers' Party. The background to this kidnapping was probably the action taken by the German authorities against the Kurdish-language television station Roj TV . The German hostages were released on July 20, possibly in connection with a Turkish military action, which the PKK denied; Observers suspected a power struggle between moderate and radical forces within the PKK.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry announced on July 17, 2008: “The PKK was and is a terrorist organization.” In 2011, thirty PKK sympathizers occupied the headquarters of the RTL television station in Cologne and demanded the release of the party founder, Abdullah Öcalan . In February 2013, the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg sentenced a suspected PKK cadre to two and a half years in prison for membership in a foreign terrorist organization for the first time under Section 129 a of the Criminal Code. In April 2013, Kurdish PKK sympathizers took control of a ferry with 60 passengers near Hamburg-Finkenwerder after a similar incident on the Rhine shortly before.

The protection of the Constitution estimated the PKK's donations in 2018 at 13 million euros.

The PKK ban is controversial in Germany, especially since the PKK has been actively involved in the fight against the Islamic State with its Syrian offshoot PYD . For example, Die Linke is calling for the ban to be lifted. Rolf Mützenich from the SPD sees the peace talks with Turkey as an “opportunity to reorganize the PKK”. CSU politicians Stephan Mayer and Clemens Binninger ( CDU ), however, support the ban.

The Weser-Kurier reported on the structures of the PKK in Bremen and the city's senate warned of the organization's underground activities. Germany is a retreat and recruiting country for the PKK, but violent crimes also occur. There have been homicides committed by militant supporters. With an estimated 13,000 members (as of 2016), the PKK is one of the largest foreign extremist groups in Germany. It is present in many cities, but hides its structures behind Kurdish organizations that present themselves as peaceful. She also organizes demonstrations by militant Kurds in Germany to commemorate their so-called martyrs.

In the 2015 report by the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the mutual relations between the PKK and left-wing extremist organizations in Germany were discussed. An alliance of YEK-KOM (renamed NAV-DEM in June 2014), the “Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany” (MLPD) and the “Antifascist Revolutionary Action Berlin” (ARAB) is supposed to come about under the name “Tatort Kurdistan” be. The aim is to lift the PKK's ban on activities in Germany and to start a propaganda campaign that shows an alleged "war by Turkey against the Kurdish civilian population". To this end, the “Tatort Kurdistan” alliance organized demonstrations in Berlin and Hamburg in 2011, in which around 80 people were injured.

On February 12 in 2019 forbade the Federal Interior Ministry , the Mezopotamien Publishing and Distribution GmbH and MIR Multimedia GmbH , because the suspicion was confirmed during the search of the premises, "that the business operations of both associations alone the maintenance of organizational cohesion of the PKK" serve. “Under the guise of publishing companies”, “all business activities exclusively benefit the PKK”. “With its economic income”, “the terrorist organization's scope for action in Germany and Europe would be sustainably strengthened.” This would “systematically undermine the effects of the PKK ban”.

In April 2019, the higher regional court in Celle sentenced four PKK supporters to more than two years ' imprisonment . They cooperatively committed publicly dangerous crime (s) of "attempted serious arson " in March 2018 and the court further assessed it as a violation of the weapons law or as " support for a terrorist organization abroad " of the PKK. The following criminal offenses in the Hanover region , where they threw Molotov cocktails at a Turkish shop or set fire to a Turkish van. Furthermore, it was seen as proven that the convicted criminals were instigated to the crimes by a "PKK youth leader who went into hiding".

Austria

In a judgment of October 18, 1994, the Supreme Court classified the PKK and its sub-organizations as a criminal organization under Section 278a (1) of the  Criminal Code . In March 1995 the ERNK, a sub-organization of the PKK, opened an office in Vienna. Interior Minister Karl Schlögl spoke out in February 1999 against a ban on the PKK or its sub-organizations, fearing that this would push the activists underground and make it difficult to monitor their structures.

The 2006 report on the protection of the constitution relates to the assessment of the European Union and describes the PKK as an organization that uses terrorist means. Although the PKK does not appear officially in Austria, the Association of Kurdish Associations in Austria openly sympathizes with it. As in the rest of Europe, the local structures primarily serve to provide financial support for the guerrilla units in Turkey. In 2012, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Fight against Terrorism assessed the potential for a terrorist threat to Austria from the PKK as “tending to be low”.

According to the 2015 report on the Protection of the Constitution, the activities of the PKK activist scene in Austria focus on collecting donations and raising public awareness of the Kurdish problem. Across Europe, recruiting activities at ideological seminars can be assumed, which are also attended by people from Austria.

Switzerland

Switzerland is important for the PKK as a logistical base and lounge. The seat of the Swiss PKK headquarters is in Basel, regional organizational units in Basel, Bern and Zurich.

The leadership functionaries are known to the members of the PKK exclusively by code names and behave in a conspiratorial manner .

In addition to political public relations work, the tasks of the PKK leadership in Switzerland also include political and military training as well as raising money to finance the party apparatus. In addition, young managers are recruited and trained. The PKK raised money in 1999 in the form of a "revolutionary tax". This was raised by Kurdish compatriots. These collections of money were also carried out through intimidation and the use of force. PKK members from neighboring countries were used for these punishments, and they left immediately after the violent acts had committed.

In autumn 1994 a motion was submitted to the Swiss Federal Council to ban the PKK (and the Tamil Tigers ) in the Swiss National Council . In the motion a "[accumulation of] complaints about terrorist activities [...] of the PKK (Kurdish Communist Workers' Party)" and "extortion of one's own compatriots are the order of the day", furthermore "the masterminds of the named organization [s], with reference to the right of asylum, for years to come with us [...] here undisturbed to pursue their political and sometimes terrorist activities ”as a reason. The application was finally rejected in December 1995. In the opinion of the Federal Council, this is explained by the fact that the Federal Council had already dealt with the ban on the PKK in 1993, but in view of the (manageable) threat situation and the difficult enforceability of such a ban and the feared better camouflage and unpredictability of the Had renounced activities. Reference is made to the observation by "state security agencies" and the criminal prosecution of the "violent debt collection", which, however, is often made more difficult by intimidation of the "victims [who] for fear of reprisals [who] weaken their testimony or deny or withdraw filed criminal charges ".

The 1999 Swiss State Security Report reports on embassy occupations in Bern and Zurich, the penetration of the UN premises in Geneva and other occupation actions. Accordingly, the PKK has remained an organization with a very high organizational potential and manifest potential for violence. Since these violent riots, however, the PKK has behaved peacefully in Switzerland, although it is still classified as a group with great potential for violence.

Turkey's request to ban the PKK was rejected by Switzerland in 2006. The reason for the decision is that Switzerland is acting cautiously on this issue and is going the route of case-related legal assistance and individual criminal prosecution.

Switzerland has been pursuing a more restrictive policy towards the PKK since 2008. On November 6, 2008, the Swiss Federal Council decided on a package of measures against the activities of the PKK. The Federal Council imposed a ban on collecting money for the organization. Furthermore, the cantons are called upon to take more intensive measures to obtain information about the organization. More than a dozen PKK attacks on Turkish institutions in Switzerland gave rise to the tightened measures.

France

Around 150,000 Kurds live in France.

On January 9, 2013, the co-founder of the PKK, Sakine Cansız , and two other Kurdish activists were shot dead in Paris. The three bodies had gunshot wounds in the body, neck or head. In the course of the trial against the alleged murderer Ömer Güney, German and French security authorities are now assuming that he was acting as an undercover agent for the Turkish intelligence service MIT . It is unclear whether he also received a targeted killing order.

Iran

The ARD magazine Monitor reported that the PJAK - a sub-organization of the PKK - is recruiting many fighters in Germany for terrorist attacks in Iran. The chairman of the PJAK, Ahmadi, confirmed this information.

Syria

Rojava or "West Kurdistan" as claimed on a PYD website in October 2013.

The Democratic Union Party (PYD) is regarded as the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, and the People's Defense Units (YPG) are considered to be its “armed arm” .

While experts as well as regional governments, including Turkey, believe that the PYD and YPG are closely linked to the PKK and are co-financed by it, the PYD and YPG deny any direct links to the PKK. According to experts, the PYD is not only allied with the PKK, but arose as an offshoot of the PKK. Turkey, like the expert Wladimir van Wilgenburg, also regard the YPG as the “armed arm of the PKK in Syria”. According to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank , most of the leading YPG commanders were trained in PKK camps in the Kandil region of northern Iraq. According to Ferhad Seyder, Head of the Mustafa Barzani Office for Kurdish Studies at the University of Erfurt , the PKK, which had tried in vain for three decades to implement its own order in the armed struggle against Turkey, saw the beginning of the so-called " Arab Spring ”in Syria the chance to implement their ideas of a Kurdish order in Syria. At the beginning of 2011, 1,500 armed Syrian Kurds, who are said to have been PKK members, are said to have advanced from Turkey to Syria, where no armed Kurdish group had existed until then.

When the former Syrian dictator Hafiz al-Assad had granted PKK leader Öcalan hospitality for two decades at the end of the 20th century, Öcalan had succeeded in building a strong base in Syria. Also because Öcalan's followers, who were persecuted by Assad after Öcalan's drop in 1998, resisted the Syrian regime, the PKK leader was intensely venerated in “West Kurdistan” even during the Syria crisis . In preparation for the 2011 takeover, the PYD had hoarded weapons and taken over all important authorities. In 2011 trained PYD cadres then took power in the Kurdish regions of northern Syria. Depending on how it was read, the PYD had the reputation of striving for a “ Greater Kurdistan ” or a democratic order based on self-organization and council structures, as PKK boss Öcalan had announced after the abandonment of the concept of a Kurdish statehood , as the socialist Syrian successor of the PKK which was called " democratic confederalism " based on Öcalan .


Left-wing extremists and left-wing extremists

In March 2016, under the leadership of the PKK, the TKP / ML , the MLKP and other Turkish left-wing extremist groups formed an alliance to form the “United People's Revolutionary Movement of the Peoples” (HBDH) in order to armed and take all other means against the AKP government in Turkey .

Classification as a terrorist organization

On November 26, 1993, the Federal Republic of Germany banned the PKK from operating. It was a response to 60 attacks on Turkish facilities in various cities in the Federal Republic of Germany in July 1993, in which one person died. The European Union , the USA , the United Kingdom , Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia , Iran , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , Australia , New Zealand , Canada and Japan have the PKK on their terrorist lists. The NATO classifies the PKK as terrorists.

Furthermore, Azerbaijan , Sweden and the foreign ministries of the European states of Spain and the Czech Republic explicitly designate the PKK as a terrorist organization.

According to the Swiss Intelligence Service (NDB) Security Report 2015, among other things , the PKK is to be regarded “as a violent extremist and terrorist group whose potential for violence has not decreased”. However, the PKK organization is not banned in Switzerland , but the two PKK sub-organizations " People's Defense Forces (HPG) " and " Freedom Falcons Kurdistan (TAK) " are classified as criminal organizations by the Swiss Federal Police (fedpol) .

Most EU members do not classify the PKK as a terrorist organization themselves, but rather through their EU membership and the EU terrorist list, which is recognized as binding . The CFI has in early 2008 upheld the first instance of an action by the PKK against their inclusion in the list of terrorist organizations by the European Union in the version of 2002 due to a procedural violation. The error, which has since been corrected, does not affect the current terrorist lists of the EU, so that the judgment has no effect on the current classification of the PKK as a terrorist organization.

The United Nations and states like China , India and Egypt have not classified the PKK as terrorist either. Even Russia does not consider the PKK a terrorist organization as it can operate freely there.

In December 2014, the left-wing parliamentary group in the German Bundestag submitted an application to lift the ban on the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and remove the PKK from the EU terror list, which was discussed in the plenary session of the German Bundestag on February 26, 2015 .

The Belgian Supreme Court ruled on September 16, 2017 that the PKK was not a terrorist organization. The Belgian Court of Cassation confirmed the judgment in January 2020, so the PKK would not fall under the Belgian anti-terror law . Following the judgment, Foreign Minister Philippe Goffin of the Belgian federal government said: “It is a decision of the judiciary, which is strictly independent from the executive”, but “the position of the Belgian government is unequivocal. The PKK is a terrorist organization ”.

On November 15, 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg ruled that the banned PKK was wrongly included on the terror list from 2014 to 2017 due to procedural errors . Thus, the PKK's asset freeze between 2014 and 2017 was not sufficiently justified. Furthermore, it was decided that the PKK should still be listed on the terrorist list, so there were no sufficient reasons for the PKK's request to be removed from the EU terrorist list during the negotiation. The overall verdict had no concrete influence on the PKK's illegal situation. It remained on the EU terrorist list.

Perception and self-expression

Stickers against the PKK ban (Hamburg 2017)

A brochure published by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in 2015 shows that the PKK is pursuing a dual strategy. The militant-aggressive appearance in the Turkish-Iraqi and Turkish-Syrian border areas contrasts with the attempt to strive for a peaceful image in the West, in order to preserve Europe in particular as a “safe haven” for areas of calm and retreat. Nevertheless, there is a latent willingness to use violence on the part of the PKK in Germany too. "Spontaneous acts of violence can arise at any time", depending on the situation, also against the police during demonstrations and Turkish facilities through incendiary devices.

In 2007 the name was changed to KCK in order to give the impression of a realignment of the PKK and to free itself from associations with terrorism. Despite outwardly propagated transparency, there is an authoritarian hierarchy within the PKK, whereby requirements to be implemented are enforced from “top to bottom”.

With the Iraq crisis in 2014 and the emergence of IS , a new situation arose in northern Syria. The PYD, the Syrian branch of the PKK, joined the anti-IS alliance, which is why it received logistical and political support, particularly from the USA. Turkey criticized this out of concern that the weapons could fall into the hands of the PKK or IS. In fact, weapons are said to have reached the PKK in this way. The PKK hoped that this would reassess the ban on activities in Germany. In particular representatives of the LEFT and some politicians of the SPD supported this demand. Left MPs were photographed in public with PKK flags and were convicted by a court of law.

Sevim Dağdelen (DIE LINKE) expressed her support for the PKK on Anne Will's show in 2016 . The PKK is not a terrorist organization, but a "political organization". For this she was sharply criticized. The Federal Ministry of the Interior stuck to its assessment that the PKK should still be classified as a terrorist organization.

After serious terrorist attacks that targeted security forces but also killed many civilians in Turkey, the TAK took responsibility for them. Sinan Ülgen, President of the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy, takes the view that the PKK uses the TAK to carry out serious actions that could damage the image of the organization and the organization's relations with foreign countries.

Since the PKK is banned in Germany, it tries to operate through restructuring. The PKK continues to operate in Germany and uses dozens of local associations, which act as meeting points for its supporters and whose umbrella organization is the “Democratic Kurdish Society Center Germany” (NAV-DEM), to control information and implement its directives. Activities include organizing demonstrations, collecting money and establishing contact with political decision-makers in order to increase one's own influence. In addition, attention is drawn to the imprisoned head of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan , through regular vigils . The PKK is also present at the universities through the Association of Students from Kurdistan (YXK) .

According to the “Handbook on Prevention of Extremism” (2020) of the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) , the PKK is described in the section “The Separatist Workers' Party of Kurdistan (PKK)” as follows: it is now more strongly influenced by Kurdish nationalism . The PKK only gained importance in Germany in the 1980s and 1990s, after a large number of Kurds emigrated to Germany. These Kurdish emigrants also included PKK supporters and they wanted to continue to work for the PKK organization. After attacks in June 1993, it was banned in November 1993. The prohibition order on the PKK was renewed in March 2017 and January 2018 because “the essence, goals and organizational apparatus of the PKK have essentially remained the same”. Initially, the PKK was only considered a criminal organization , but meanwhile the German judiciary has agreed “that it is a criminal and terrorist organization abroad according to Sections 129a and 129b StGB”. Regardless of the ban, "the PKK continues to regard itself as the only legitimate representative of the Kurdish ethnic group in Germany, and thus claims leadership that other Kurdish organizations have so far failed to". This in turn causes the self-perception of the PKK supporters to “show no understanding for a critical approach to the PKK”. “Within German society, the PKK can fall back on a broad circle of sympathizers”; these people “easily overlook the criminal to terrorist traits of the PKK”. The PKK scene primarily perceives the demonstrations carried out by society, among other things, demonstrations are often made for the release of the "PKK founder [s] Öcalan from his life imprisonment". According to Human Rights Watch (1998) Ocalan is considered responsible for "crimes against humanity" ( German  crimes against humanity ) and must innocent for the wanton murder of civilians are brought to justice.

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: PKK  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Commons : PKK  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
 Wikinews: Category: PKK  - in the news

Individual evidence

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