HDP: City blockades are systematic massacre attempts

Regarding the city blockades and genocidal attacks in 2015-2016, HDP emphasized that this was a systematic massacre attempt, adding; "The Kurdish people are standing against these attacks and continuing their honorable resistance."

In a written statement the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Central Executive Board (MYK) said that the period of city blockades, which were implemented under the guise of curfew in 2015 and 2016, has remained as one of the greatest unlawfulness, human rights violations and atrocities in these lands. The curfews launched in Muş-Varto on August 16, 2015, gained a new dimension with the blockade of Şırnak-Cizre on December 14, 2015. These aggressive fascist practices which were implemented in 11 provinces and 49 more districts, including Silopi, İdil, Derik, Nusaybin, Yüksekova, Varto, Silvan caused profound human and social destruction.

The statement emphasized that "The reports of the United Nations, the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights and many international institutions and organizations have registered the unlawfulness".

HDP continued; "The Council of Europe Venice Commission's report titled ‘Opinion on the Legal Framework governing Curfews’, published on 13 June 2016, found that 'Serious human rights violations were experienced, fundamental rights and freedoms were suspended and curfews had no legal basis.' In a report prepared by a commission headed by UN High Commissioner Zeid Raad Al Hussein on March 10, 2017, it was stated that nearly 2 thousand people lost their lives in the operations that continued for 18 months during this period.”

The statement revealed that ‘’according to research conducted by independent human rights organizations at that time, between 1 million 500 thousand and 1 million 800 thousand people were deprived of many fundamental human rights, including freedom, security and the right to life.

The statement further remarked that; "All of these attacks have been implemented within the scope of the ‘Collapse Plan', and have been continuing uninterruptedly ever since. These lands have seen and lived through all the forms of savagery, migration and collapse for thousands of years. Despite all these efforts to capture, suppress and silence, the Kurdish people living in the region are standing up today and continuing their honorable resistance.

Although five years have passed since the blockades that lasted for months in Şırnak, Cizre, Silopi, Sur, Nusaybin, Yüksekova, Silvan, İdil and Dargeçit districts, none of the lawsuits filed for serious crimes against humanity have progressed and most of the cases have resulted in non-prosecution, and many families have not even reached bodies of their daughters and sons. The current judiciary has tried to cover up the destruction and savagery.

We believe that this brutality and massacre will sooner or later be condemned before the law, as it has been condemned in the conscience of society. We will never forget the pains imposed on our people, and we will never let them be forgetten ...”