Kenan Ayaz, accused of PKK membership in Hamburg, was finally able to continue his trial statement. The Kurdish activist gave the court an exciting lesson in history.
The trial against Kenan Ayaz for membership of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has continued at the Higher Regional Court (OLG) in Hamburg. Apparently, the presiding judge Wende-Spohrs has realised that there is no point in preventing Kenan Ayaz from making his statement. As a result, he was able to give a larger part of his prepared speech on Monday. Nevertheless, he was interrupted several times by the judge, who apparently felt the need to make scheduling suggestions in the middle of Kenan Ayaz’s speech. Apparently, she realised that the dates scheduled so far would not be enough to conclude the proceedings. As the Cypriot lawyer Efstathios C. Efstathiou reported, she even threatened to charge Antonia von der Behrens the costs of the proceedings if the trial was cancelled due to scheduling difficulties. ‘Something like this would not be possible in Cyprus,’ he commented, visibly shocked. Wende-Spohrs herself had ended two full trial days after a few minutes and an hour respectively, because she probably wanted to prevent a large public audience from hearing the trial statement.
Help from the West for the ‘sick man on the Bosporus’
In his statement, Kenan Ayaz focussed on the role of Europe and the UK in particular in Kurdistan. According to Ayaz, the Ottoman Empire had pursued a federal approach towards the Kurds and favoured integration over assimilation. This meant that the Kurdish principalities were more or less autonomous with a loose relationship to the central power. However, as the empire was constantly losing territory in the west, it sought to strengthen its power in the east. The West supported the ‘sick man on the Bosporus’ in order to keep him alive. The Kurdish principalities, which had remained independent, had been pinned down.
‘Great Britain took on the leading role in the spread of capitalist modernity,’ Ayaz explained. This led to the homogenisation of nation states through nationalist movements from the central Western European hegemony to the periphery. According to Kenan Ayaz’s analysis, Britain’s interest lay in delaying the collapse of the empire for as long as possible. Instead of creating an insurmountable and uncontrollable situation by destroying the Ottoman Empire, it was more advantageous for the British to bind the Sultan and an important part of the bureaucracy to themselves and thus control the region.
‘When Britain conquered Iraq in the first half of the 19th century because of the route to India and the potential wealth of minerals and oil, it pursued a fundamental policy of pitting Kurds, Arabs and Assyrians against the Turkish administration and, even worse, against each other,’ Ayaz described the dilemma.
With the support of the German military adviser Moltke
Ayaz went on to describe a series of uprisings against colonialism in Kurdistan led by various Mîrs, such as the uprising in Rewandiz (also Rewanduz) by Mîr Mihemed, ruler of the Emirate of Soran, who was able to take control of large parts of Kurdistan between 1814 and 1832 and create an independent emirate. However, the uprising was put down with the help of the British and Mîr Mihemed was executed. Following the suppression of the uprising, a large-scale massacre took place in Kurdistan. Many small and large emirates were liquidated and destroyed.
Ayaz also addressed the role of Helmuth von Moltke. At the invitation of the Ottoman Minister of War, Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha, Moltke was an instructor for the Ottoman troops from 1836 to 1839 and supported them in the subjugation of Kurdish principalities, such as Garzan. According to Ayaz, Moltke described the cruel massacres of the subjugated Kurds, civilians and villagers in his memoirs and letters.
Kenan Ayaz, here at the start of the trial in November 2023, is one of twelve Kurds currently in pre-trial or criminal detention in Germany under §§129a/b StGB. He was arrested in March 2023 on the basis of a German extradition request in the Republic of Cyprus, where he had been living as a recognised political refugee since 2013. He spent a total of twelve years in prison in Turkey and has been held in Hamburg’s Holstenglacis remand prison for just over a year. He is accused of managing areas in Germany as a PKK member from 2018 to 2020 and coordinating personnel, financial and organisational matters. The federal prosecutor’s office is relying on unquestionable intelligence information and one-sidedly interpreted text messages and telephone calls. Mehmet Zeki Ekinci
The resistance of Bedirxan Beg in Botan
According to Kenan Ayaz, another principality that resisted its subjugation for a long time was that of Bedirxan Beg, who fought against the central power between 1842 and 1847.
The significance of Bedirxan Beg’s uprising lies in the fact that he continuously developed his principality and moved towards a modern state organisation, according to Ayaz. “It was an early national movement. If it had not been suppressed, it could have developed into a nation state. The events and policies that developed under the leadership of Bedirxan Beg are also very instructive for today, as it is a movement that comes closest to the modern character,’ said Ayaz, describing Bedirxan’s attempt at liberation. After the suppression, however, Kurdistan was only a geographical term.
Another uprising was developed by Bedirxan’s sons in 1878, which led to them controlling the Botan region for nine months. According to Kenan Ayaz, Sheikh Ubeydullah was once again able to spark a strong rebellion, mobilising numerous Begs, tribal leaders and dignitaries before he was captured by treachery and exiled to Mecca. “Sheikh Ubeydullah’s movement was active in large parts of both the Ottoman Empire and Iranian Kurdistan and took on military forms. The support of one or more of the hegemonic powers of the time would have been enough for it to become an official state. However, this support did not materialise,’ Ayaz explained the situation of the Kurds at the time of Sheikh Ubeydullah.
Agha, sheikh and state
After the suppression of the feudal uprisings of the Mîrs, new elite categories emerged in Kurdistan, Ayaz continued. The princes and emirs, who were seen by society as the bearers of solutions, were replaced by religious leaders in a chaotic environment. ‘On the one hand, the mîrs were replaced by a multitude of large and small aghas, and on the other, the institution of the sheikhdom came to the fore. Previously, the sheikhate as a religious institution was a status that was respected spiritually, but was of lesser importance compared to the mîrs,’ Ayaz explained about the situation after the suppression of the rebellions. The Nakshibendi order played a decisive role, he said, having quickly spread throughout Kurdistan and assumed the role of a bulwark against possible independence efforts. According to Ayaz, the sheikhs filled the gap in authority left by the destruction of the principalities. Ayaz suspects that the Nakshibendi had promised to divide Kurdistan into several parts in agreement with the Ottomans. ‘This assumption is supported by the fact that today almost all Nakshibendi sheikhs are recognised and authorised by the USA and Great Britain,’ says Ayaz.
Ayaz went on to describe the establishment of the Aghatum, the large landowners. “The collapse of the emirates, which were based on the rural aristocracy, was replaced by the large landowners. Later, the shaykhat, an inter-tribal institution, also came into effect. Previously, the Aghas had practised agriculture, trade and cattle breeding on a small scale on the lands of the emirs. With the fall of the emirs, the Aghas sprang up like mushrooms. In order to accelerate this process, the Ottoman Empire created the necessary conditions with the Land Law of 1858,’ Ayaz explains the land seizure of today’s large landowners through the “Land Law”, which reorganised all Ottoman land ownership and clarified its inheritance and ownership issues. This redistribution of land ownership officially ended Kurdistan’s autonomous status. The relatively authentic Kurdish elites of the past had been replaced by a new class of collaborators and traitors who were compatible with the capitalist system of the future.
Assimilation or fossilisation
“Many sociologists agree that the policy of “divide and rule” is one of the greatest disasters a nation can suffer in its history. This is because the policy of divide and rule corrodes the brain of the nation and breaks its skeleton. It is said that a nation that has suffered such a heavy blow cannot recover so easily,’ Ayaz summarised this phase. He then went on to address the alienation of the Kurds, quoting Paulo Freire and Franz Fanon. The Kurds had denied themselves as a result of the oppression. They could not get used to the colonial situation, but had to break through it.
Hamidiye regiments
In the next part, Kenan Ayaz dealt with the negative role of the Hamidiye regiments. These regiments (literally ‘belonging to Hamid’) were well-armed, irregular, mainly Sunni Kurdish cavalry formations that operated in the south-eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Founded in 1891 by Sultan Abdul Hamid II and named after him, the troops were deployed by the Ottoman authorities to attack and exterminate the Armenians living in the eastern provinces of the empire.
Kenan Ayaz interprets their role as follows: ‘The Hamidiye regiments had devastating consequences for Kurdish society. They brought the Kurdish upper class into conflict with itself, but also with Armenians, Assyrians and Arab tribes. This was the most negative stage of Kurdish collaborationism. Western colonialism, led by Britain, had paved the most dangerous path to the destruction of the Greek, Armenian and Assyrian peoples of the region,’ Ayaz continued. He described how some Kurdish tribes were used like pawns. According to Ayaz, the ideology of Islamic unity was used to turn the Kurdish tribes into a reserve army at their disposal. ‘In this way, they hoped to keep the Kurds under control and secure the authority of the state through them, prevent nationalist movements of non-Turkish ethnicities, including the Kurdish struggle, and create unrest in the border areas with Russia.’ This logic later led to tribes, some of whom were not even known, being armed and turned into village protectors.
“The rulers always made special efforts to facilitate control over the territories they occupied and to change the balance of power in their favour by attracting part of the population that had settled in the occupied territories to their side. The first collaborator was also the first village protector,’ says Ayaz.
“As with the Hamidiye regiments, the village guards were rewarded with salaries for this disruptive role of betrayal. The antagonism between the tribes intensified. While the hostile tribes were fighting each other, they lost the consciousness to act against the occupiers and were caught in the pincers,’ Ayaz compared the Hamidiye regiments and the so-called village guards, a counter-guerrilla organisation founded in 1985, one year after the start of the PKK’s armed struggle, to arm Kurdish clans and tribes in the fight against the PKK.
Ayaz went on to describe the massacres committed by the Hamidiye regiments against Armenians: ‘The fact that two peoples who had lived together peacefully for thousands of years fell into the trap of destroying each other shows how low the immorality of the collaborating Kurdish elites had sunk. It is said that in the first years of the first and most comprehensive genocide of capitalist modernity, between 1895 and 1896 alone, exactly 300,000 Armenians were massacred. And many of these were carried out by the Hamidiye regiments. In other words, this terrible atrocity was committed by the Kurdish elites, who plunged themselves into the abyss of betrayal through their collaboration.”
‘Unity and progress’
According to Kenan Ayaz, both the Young Turk movement, the Committee for Unity and Progress, and its successor, the Unity and Progress Party (İttihat Terakki Partisi), collaborated with and were financed by Western organisations and lodges in the West. The Young Turks staged a coup against the Ottoman administration in 1876. The Committee for Unity and Progress took over the legacy of the Young Turks and ruled the country through coups and crises for ten years after taking power in 1908.
Initially, however, this movement was supported by people from many peoples, such as Armenians, Albanians and Greeks, in order to overcome the oppressive regime of Sultan Abdülhamit. “These Ottoman pasha nationalists proclaimed freedom against Abdülhamit on 23 July 1908. Their slogan was ‘equality, freedom and brotherhood for all’, but they soon showed their true colours and began murdering Armenians. Later, they justified the genocide of 1.5 million people by claiming that the Armenians had collaborated with the enemy during the war. And after the Armenians, it was the Kurds‘ turn,’ says Ayaz.
After taking power, the new government decided to eliminate any opposition to it and to suppress any dissenting opinion. ‘Anyone who did not belong to the Committee for Unity and Progress was therefore considered an enemy,’ emphasised Ayaz. Forced Turkification and the establishment of a highly centralised administration had begun and the secret organisation Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa had carried out cruel massacres. This mentality still has an impact today and is used as a kind of genocidal machinery against the people.
At this point, Ayaz once again emphasised the responsibility of the European hegemonic powers, especially Great Britain, for the establishment of a fascist elite, which consisted not only of Turks, but also of power-hungry non-nationals who stood on the remnants of the Ottoman imperial tradition. ‘This elite was set up as a small circle of rulers to act as a genocidal machine against the cultures of the Middle East, including Turkey.’ It was necessary for Europeans to face up to their responsibility and not just blame the Turks.
In his words: ‘The Committee for Unity and Progress can be described as a genocidal regime and a genocidal organisation. It can be characterised as a regime that wages war both internally and externally. The daily events in Turkey prove this thesis. The result of a regime that is in a permanent state of confrontation with society is a state of crisis and chaos that can be described as dangerous,’ Kenan Ayaz concluded the trial day.
Further trial dates:
Kenan Ayaz’s last word could last for several more days. Further scheduled dates are on 29 July at 13:00, on 30 July at 9:30 and on 19 August at 9:30. The trial will take place on the first floor of the Hamburg Higher Regional Court at Sievekingplatz 3, either in room 237 or 288.
The website kenanwatch.org provides information in Greek, English and German about the trial and the protests in Cyprus and Germany. Kenan Ayaz is happy to receive mail. Letters can also be written in languages other than Kurdish or Turkish, as translation is guaranteed. Please note the spelling of the authority’s name ‘Ayas’ to ensure that the letters are delivered.
Kenan Ayas
Hamburg remand centre
Holstenglacis 3
20355 Hamburg
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