The Third Critical Psychology Symposium organized by the Association of Psychologists for Social Solidarity will take place at Sümerpark reception hall in the main Kurdish city Diyarbakýr today, Saturday and tomorrow. The two-day symposium is expected to be attended by a number of academicians from Turkey and western countries.

The symposium will mainly address the subject of “social trauma” under the title of “war”, “militarism”, “torture”, “women”, ”children” and “migration”.

In a statement calling for participation in the symposium, the association called attention to the importance of the symposium’s being held in the province of Diyarbakýr which -it added- has constantly witnessed a war environment, cases of torture and death, unidentified murders, extrajudicial executions, suffered a considerable population decrease because of forced migrations, and has become a territory where children are raised in an environment lacking in peace and right to native language education while thousands of women have lost their children, husbands and relatives in the ongoing conflict environment.

The association called attention to the public need for this symposium and added;

“A considerable part of the society has not only been subjected to systematical government-run pressures in the last 30 years since the 12 September military coup in 1980 but also witnessed forced migrations and tortures. These traumatic times have not only led to difficulties in the daily life and repression on freedom of thought and expression but also weakened the hope for the possibility of a life in peace and safety. This picture could be identified as “public state of lament and trauma” which has been the main title of the Third Critical Psychology Symposium in Diyarbakýr.”