After 45 days protesting PKK, Kurdish mothers still hope to reach their children
by Daily Sabah with AA
ISTANBULOct 18, 2019 - 12:49 pm GMT+3
by Daily Sabah with AA
Oct 18, 2019 12:49 pm
The Kurdish mothers' protests against the PKK terrorist group, demanding the return of their children abducted by the terrorists, have been going on for 45 days with no signs of empathy from the pro-PKK People’s Democratic Party (HDP). The mothers are carrying the sit-in in front of the HDP's Diyarbakır headquarters. One of the mothers, Ayşegül Biçer, 32, is a mother of three, two daughters and a son. She has been undergoing treatment for a brain tumor. "I have an only son and they deceived him. They took him to the mountains," she said, looking at a photo of him with tears in her eyes.
Her son, Mustafa, was 16 years old when he left home on the morning of Nov. 17, 2018. "I was at the hospital being treated for a brain tumor," said Biçer, recalling the day her son disappeared. "He was at home with his father." "He told his father he was going out with his cousins and never came back," she added. Mustafa was a student at an Imam Hatip High School, a religious school, but later quit, switching to open education.
"His dream was to become an imam. How did they manage to deceive my son? I go crazy thinking about that," she said. She believes that YPG terrorists approached her son on social media and brainwashed him to join the group. Biçer said she saw the messages sent to her son through Facebook and Instagram, which she shared with the authorities, including the police. "A person using a nickname texted my son for three weeks and changed his way of thinking," she added. Similar to Biçer, a Kurdish father Salih Gökçe, from eastern Ağrı province, said he will not leave the headquarters before her son Ömer, who was kidnapped by the PKK in Istanbul, returns. “My son was supposed to join the army. Instead, they took him to Ayn al-Arab and he never came back. This is the 45th day, our duty continues,” Gökçe said. “I want my son. I will not leave Diyarbakır without him,” he added. Biçer told Anadolu Agency (AA) she observed a big change in Mustafa's behavior before he disappeared, including frequently becoming angry with family members. "Two days later, he left, on Nov. 19. We were contacted by YPG terrorists who said our son was with them. They even shared his code name with us," she said. Biçer said she won't give up her struggle until her son returns.
"Even though I can't bring back my son, I can bring many young people back or prevent them from leaving,” she underlined. "We will continue our protest in front of the HDP's office. We have a right to be there because they taught our children there. They made our children love the PKK," she said. She added that she was threatened by some people from the HDP and accused of receiving support from the government. "I came here of my own will," she stressed, underlining that there are no politics involved in their protests. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Kurdish mothers met with mothers from Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Srebrenica, who lost their children during the Bosnian War back in the 1990s. A total of 94 Srebrenica mothers, together with 17 representatives of different human rights groups, came to Diyarbakır for an emotional meeting. “You were beside us during the war. That’s why we are here today,” said Mithedo Oruli, underlining that they will always share the pain of the Kurdish mothers. It is not a coincidence that mothers from Srebrenica felt the need to show support to Kurdish mothers protesting the PKK as they can understand their grief. More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed after Bosnian Serb forces attacked Srebrenica in July 1995, despite the presence of Dutch troops tasked with acting as international peacekeepers. Srebrenica was besieged by Serbian forces trying to wrest the territory from Bosnian Muslims and Croats to form their state. The U.N. Security Council had declared Srebrenica a "safe area" in the spring of 1993; however, Serb troops led by Gen. Ratko Mladic who was later found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, overran the U.N. zone. The Dutch troops failed to act as Serb forces occupied the area, killing about 2,000 men and boys on July 11 alone. Some 15,000 people from Srebrenica fled into the surrounding mountains, but Serb troops hunted down and killed 6,000 of them in the forests.
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