Jamie Williams, a 28-year-old Melbourne man, was remanded in custody on July 27 after being charged by the Melbourne Joint Counter Terrorism Team for attempting to leave Australia on December 28 to travel to northern Iraq and fight with Kurdish forces against the Islamic State and Iraq and Syria (ISIS). 91自拍论坛 Weekly鈥檚 Zane Alcorn spoke to Rob Stary, who has been representing Williams in this case, about the anti-terror laws and the Kurdish liberation struggle.
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Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
Turkish police repress protests against Erdogan's renewed war.
The outcome of Turkey鈥檚 June 7 parliamentary elections promised so much.
Turkey has 鈥渏oined the war against ISIS鈥, according to US politicians and the corporate media after a July 23 deal between the US and the Turkish government. The deal gives US war planes and drones access to Turkey's Incirlik airbase from which to conduct air strikes in Syria and Iraq.
At a protest outside the Turkish Consulate in Sydney on July 23, Kurdish activists and their supporters accused the Turkish government of complicity in the massacre in Suruc of 32 young socialists on their way to help rebuild Kobane, in the liberated area of Rojava in northern Syria.
On July 20, 32 people were killed in a suicide bombing attack on a cultural centre in Suru莽, a town in Turkish Kurdistan. More than 100 were injured.
Suru莽 is located across the border from the Syrian Kurdish town of Koban锚, which was besieged by forces of the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), between September and January.
The 鈥淚slamic State鈥 (IS) terror group attacks in Tunisia, Kuwait and France have grabbed global attention and condemnation. But the group's attack on Kobane in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) 鈥 and the fierce resistance 鈥 has been largely ignored.
Turkish-backed terrorists have massacred civilians in Koban锚. Photo: Kurdish Resistance & Liberation/Facebook.
An open letter to the Australian government calling for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to be removed from the list of proscribed terrorist organisations is gathering support.
Initiated by the Melbourne-based Australians for Kurdistan campaign committee, the open letter has attracted some notable endorsements. The letter and endorsements can be viewed .
Meral Cicek (pictured) is the chair of Kurt Kadin Iliskiler Merkezi, the Kurdish Centre for Women's Affairs in Erbil, in the autonomous Kurdish Region in northern Iraq).
Cicek spoke to the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation鈥檚 Florian Wilde during the World Social Forum (WSF) in Tunis last month. It has been translated by Leandros Fischer.
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A lot is at stake in Turkey鈥檚 parliamentary elections to be held on June 7 鈥 for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as well as the oppressed Kurdish population.
Australians for Kurdistan (AFK) committee has launched a campaign for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to be removed from the Australian government鈥檚 list of terrorist organisations.
The PKK was first listed in 2005; its listing comes up for review this August.
In the light of the frontline role the PKK has played in fighting the Islamic State killers in Syria and Iraq and in mobilising support within Turkey for Rojava (the Kurdish-majority liberated zone in northern Syria), to label the PKK as 鈥渢errorist鈥 is simply ridiculous.
When Prime Minister Tony Abbott used a March 3 press conference at Parliament House to announce the deployment of 300 more soldiers to Iraq, it was impossible to ignore the political theatre to serve a partisan domestic agenda.
If you missed it in the content of his talk, you couldn't miss the no-less-than eight flags propped up behind him as he spoke.
A combination of relentless attacks on the living standards of ordinary people and Abbott's incompetence has made his government one of the most unpopular in Australian history.
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