Zekî Shengalî

Zekî Şengalî (or Mam Zekî , born January 28, 1952 in Şasim, Batman , Turkey ; † August 15, 2018 in Sinjar , Iraq ) was a Yezidi high-ranking member of the Kurdish PKK . He was also called "Mam Zekî" (Uncle Zekî).

Personal

Zekî Şengalî, whose real name is İsmail Özden, was born as the youngest of eight children in the Yezidi Kurdish village of Şasim (Turkish: Oğuz) in the Batman district. He attended school until he was 12 years old. In 1969 he married and left Turkey because of the repression of the Turkish state against the religiously persecuted Yazidi Kurds in the same year for Germany and built a new life in Celle and had seven children.

First contact with the PKK

Zekî Şengalî first came into contact with the PKK at a PKK party congress in Essen in 1979. In the same year he joined the party. In the mid-1980s he was editor-in-chief of the PKK magazine Serxwebûn . At this time he adopted the code name "Zekî".

Imprisonment in Germany

Because of his activities, he was imprisoned in Germany from 1992–1994 and 1996–1998.

Role within the PKK

Zekî Shengalî was a senior member of the PKK. In 1999, after the arrest of party leader Abdullah Öcalan , he stayed in the northern Iraqi Kandil Mountains . Between 2002 and 2004 he lived in Sinjar and his Yezidi origin lay down the code name "Zeki Şengalî" in reference to. In 2006 he was confirmed as a member of the Executive Council of the KCK.

Attack by the Islamic State on Sinjar in 2014

On August 3, 2014, the Islamic State raided the Yazidis-inhabited areas in Sinjar. The Kurdish Peshmerga withdrew without resistance and left the region to the Islamic State. Women were raped en masse, men had to convert to Islam or were killed. The PKK, led by Zekî Şengalî, fought for a security corridor into the neighboring Rojava with the help of the Syrian-Kurdish YPG and was able to protect 30,000 people.

Zekî Şengalî then drove the establishment of the YBŞ (Yekîneyên Berxwedana Şengal - German: Resistance Units Şengal). Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan described Sinjar as a “second Kandil” and threatened a military offensive. Under the leadership of Zekî Shengalî, the PKK declared Sinjar to be liberated on November 13, 2015. A special unit made up of units from the PKK and YBŞ was set up to free women enslaved by the Islamic State - including at armed force.

death

On August 15, 2018, Zekî Shengalî was the target of a Turkish air strike in Sinjar. Immediately beforehand, he had attended a commemoration ceremony for the 4th anniversary of the Kodscho massacre and was on his way back. PKK commander in chief Murat Karayilan described the targeted attack as follows: “The attack on Mam Zekî, symbol of the Yazidi people and pioneer of the Kurdish freedom movement, is without a doubt a continuation of the genocide perpetrated by the 'Islamic State' in Shengal four years ago. To attack unarmed civilians in this way is the greatest terror ”. The PKK announced vengeance on the party- affiliated website ANF : “May the racially fanatic murderers be so happy and fall into hysteria because they murdered such an advocate for freedom. Your joy will not last. The women, the youth and the entire people of Kurdistan, especially the Yazidis, will sink the fascism of the AKP-MHP in the grave of history, just as they did with the fascism of the IS. The students of Mam Zekî will hold the murderers accountable. "

There were protests all over the world. Zekî Şengalî is revered as a hero in Yazidi society . Thousands attended the funeral in the village of Xane Sor near Sinjar. Thousands of people took part in a funeral event in Celle, Lower Saxony.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Waffen-fuer-die-PKK-3367056.html?seite=all
2. ↑ https://de.nachrichten.yahoo.com/hohes-pkk-haben-bei-turkischem-luftangriff-getotet-095855838.html?guccounter=1
3. ↑ https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/tuerkei-und-die-kurden-hoffnung-auf-frieden-schwindet.724.de.html?dram:article_id=301194
4. ↑ https://www.nzz.ch/international/ein-luftangriff-versetzt-die-jesiden-im-irak-erneut-in-angst-ld.1412474
5. ↑ https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Erdogan-kuendigt-Mission-im-Irak-an-article19781131.html
6. ^ Alfred Hackensberger: Dirty business with IS slaves. In: welt.de . April 27, 2016, accessed October 7, 2018 . 
7. ↑ https://anfdeutsch.com/kurdistan/karayilan-rache-fuer-zeki-Sengali-6188
8. ↑ https://anfdeutsch.com/kurdistan/pkk-erklaerung-zum-anschlag-auf-zeki-Sengali-6167
9. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/world/middleeast/turkish-airstrike-in-iraqi-territory-kills-a-kurdish-militant-leader.html
10. ↑ http://dem24.org/mam-zeki-nin-esi-gule-konustu/1