Turkey: Kurds Threatened Before Election by Uzay Bulut  •  October 29, 2015 at 5:00 am The pro-government newspaper Sabah claimed that dragging dead bodies in the streets was "routine practice" around the world, a security measure to check if the body was booby-trapped. "If we wanted to, we could round up all of them, kill them and say they committed suicide." — Ismet Sezgin, former Minister of the Interior, 1993. What Turkey is engaging in appears an attempt at historicide, just as al-Qaeda and ISIS have done in Bamiyan and Palmyra and throughout Iraq – and as the Palestinian Authority did last week with the help of a duplicitous UNESCO by labeling the Jewish holy sites of Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs Muslim sites. How are Kurds supposed to trust such a government and its army when even their dead are exposed to attacks, torture and attempts at obliteration? Relatives of Syrian Kurds who were killed in battle wait at the border for Turkey to allow the bodies to enter the country. In Turkey's election on June 7, the pro-Kurdish party came in third, evidently thwarting the plans of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to attaining the supermajority of 367 seats to be President-for-Life -- or Sultan. In an apparent attempt to rectify this supposed miscarriage of the democratic process, Erdogan called for another, snap election on November 1, seemingly to try once again to get his permanent Sultanate. Recently, presumably as a "message," Turkish officials released a jarring video -- part of which appeared to have been filmed from inside the police vehicle -- that showed the body of a Kurdish protester, shot dead, being dragged through darkened streets behind a police vehicle by a rope tied around his neck. Continue Reading Article

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