Activist Kenan Ayaz, accused of PKK membership, has given the Hamburg Higher Regional Court a historical classification of the Kurdistan conflict and the political and social oppression of the population by hegemonic powers in the Middle East.
Lesson in history
In the §129b proceedings before the Hamburg Higher Regional Court, Kenan Ayaz (officially Ayas) continued his ‘last word’ to the court on Monday. As in the previous trial sessions, Ayaz gave the criminal senate and the public a historical classification of the centuries-long conflict of the Kurdish population and their political and social oppression by hegemonic powers in the Middle East. He opened his remarks chronologically following on from the previous sessions with the influence of the political events of the First World War on Kurdistan.
The most recent hearing was also characterised by renewed verbal outbursts by presiding judge Wende-Spohr towards the trial observers. She took every opportunity, no matter how inappropriate, to reprimand the public. For example, she loudly admonished the audience several times because they were speaking after an interruption but still in the courtroom in a muted to normal tone of voice.
The First World War and the division of Kurdistan
Ayaz reported that Kurdistan suffered great losses during and after the First World War and was divided into four parts, which led to conflicts with other peoples who had previously lived together peacefully. The relations between the Kurds and other groups, such as the Armenians, Assyrians, British, Russians and the Ottoman government, are of great historical significance and promise important insights.
In this context, Ayaz emphasised the politics and role of the Ittihadists, the Young Turk movement, which developed into a machinery of genocide in the course of history.
When it was founded, the ‘Committee for Unity and Progress’ (Ittihadists) had a heterogeneous structure with representatives of various population groups, including Kurds and Albanians, but from 1906 it turned into a racist and fascist military structure.
Kenan Ayaz, shown here at the start of the trial in November 2023, is one of twelve Kurds currently in pre-trial detention 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
Historians distinguish between two committees: the first, founded in Istanbul in 1889, comprised various Ottoman nations and advocated Ottomanism under the influence of France, while the second, founded in Thessaloniki in 1906 and consisting mainly of Turks, propagated the influence of Germany and the idea of Turkishness. The Ittihadists were divided into two camps: while some were in favour of saving the Ottoman Empire through cooperation with the peoples, the others sought racist and nationalist oppression in the interests of a ‘motherland’.
History of annihilation
Kenan Ayaz mentioned the numerous massacres and expulsions that were carried out against various peoples such as the Assyrians, Circassians, Greeks and Kurds in the late 20th century and early 21st century during the progressive decline of the Ottoman Empire. In April 1914 and the years that followed, the Assyrians suffered systematic massacres at the hands of the Ittihadists, culminating on 8 September 1924, which led to the widespread extermination of the Assyrian people. The Ittihadists, who took power in 1908, consolidated their position through a combination of coups, conspiracies and assassinations, while taking far-reaching tactical measures to expand their power.
In 1912, the Ittihadists resigned from power when the Balkan War began, and the opposition took over the government. After the defeat in the Balkan War and the retreat of the opposition, the Ittihadists returned with a coup d’état on 23 January 1913. The Prussian General Colmar von der Goltz influenced the Ittihadists with his ideas on the modernisation and militarisation of the Ottoman Empire. Goltz propagated a strong, militarised nation and influenced the movement, which implemented such an idea in its political and military strategies. Leading Ittihadists emphasised the need for a strong army and the assimilation of the population, which led to an increasingly repressive policy. They systematically pursued a policy of cultural genocide against the Kurds by attempting to suppress their language, history and identity. Under the leadership of figures such as the sociologist Ziya Gökalp, who was commissioned to study Kurdish society, they developed plans for the targeted assimilation and eradication of Kurdish identity. Gökalp’s report served as the basis for the ‘Eastern Reform Plans’, which aimed at the comprehensive integration of Kurds into Turkish society.
Cultural genocide
The Ittihadists propagated that the Kurdish language was primitive and had no place in the modern world. These ideological positions were supported by other ittihadists such as Naci İsmail Peliştir, who claimed that the Kurdish language was incomplete and that its speakers were not worthy of recognition as a separate nation. In addition, attempts were made to falsify Kurdish history and deny the Kurds any historical existence by portraying their history as part of Turkish history.
With the military coup of 1913 under the leadership of Enver Pasha, the Committee for Unity and Progress took control and continued these repressive measures against the Kurds and other peoples of the Ottoman Empire. This policy continued after the fall of Sultan Abdülhamid II, when the Ittihadists undermined the existing legal foundations and cultural heritage of the Kurdish and other minorities.
Before the First World War, the Kurds staged numerous uprisings against the Ittihadists. From 1912 to 1914, there were various uprisings in Dersim, Barzan, Bitlis and Siirt. At the same time, there were also Arab uprisings against the Ittihadists. With the start of the war, many Kurds supported the Ottomans, although resistance to the Ittihadist forces continued. The war and the Sykes-Picot Agreement led to the destruction of Kurdistan and largely handed it over to the Russians. A German diplomat also suggested using the Kurds to annihilate the Armenians.
During the First World War, the Kurds and Armenians in Kurdistan were significantly decimated through targeted massacres and expulsions. Russia and Britain contributed to the escalation by turning the peoples against each other and exacerbating the destruction through their military actions. The Ottomans, especially the Ittihadists, used the war as a pretext for a brutal repression of the Kurdish population, which led to massive deportations and many deaths. The Kurds suffered enormous poverty and famine due to the devastation caused by the war and the expropriation of their property and natural resources. The effects of this policy left behind profound social and economic damage that can still be felt today.
Armenia
Visibly moved, Ayaz addresses the genocide of the Armenians, which took place at the beginning of the 20th century and was a systematic and cruel extermination of the Armenian people, in which millions of people were displaced, murdered and robbed of their culture. The Ottoman government under the Young Turks carried out these massacres by driving the Armenians into the desert through targeted persecution, forced deportations and death marches, where they died of hunger, thirst and disease. Not only were the perpetrators of these atrocious acts left unpunished, but they were rewarded for their role in the genocide, while the victims were robbed of their possessions and their cultural traces were erased. Official Turkish history has long denied and distorted the reality of the genocide, even though the crimes represent one of the darkest and most devastating chapters in recent Turkish history. The Armenian Genocide, perpetrated by the Ottoman government under the Young Turks, was also supported by Kurdish feudal lords, particularly through the Hamidiye regiments deployed against the Armenians at the time of the genocide. This genocide did not take place in isolation, but was part of a longer history of massacres and oppression dating back to the 19th century, when several massacres of Armenians had already been committed. Before and during the First World War, various Western powers, especially the British, contributed to the escalation by spreading propaganda and inciting the Hamidiye regiments against the Armenian population. The Ittihadists, who had been aligned with the Germans before the First World War, used the Kurds, especially the Hamidiye regiments, to oppress and exterminate Armenians while abusing the Kurdish population as a tool of their politics. The genocide led to a deep enmity between Armenians and Kurds, exacerbated by the anti-Kurdish violence of the Russians and mutual provocation by various powers throughout the war. In addition to the genocide of 1915, 30,000 Armenians were murdered in Adana as early as 1909, illustrating the brutally consistent policy of the Ittihadists, which aimed at the comprehensive Turkification of non-Turkish ethnicities.
It is crucial that the world recognises the historical reality of the Armenian people and allows the affected nations to share their pain, while Turkey, Germany and Britain take responsibility for their role in the genocide.
The responsibility for the genocide of the Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks is not recognised by the European hegemonic powers and is instead blamed on the Turks. This historical injustice is perpetuated by the ongoing violence against the Kurds, which emphasises the need to come to terms with the past in order to build a successful future. The Sykes-Picot Treaty of 1916, which divided the region between Britain, France and Russia, had a far-reaching impact on the Middle East and Kurdistan, as it established administration by these powers and left the Kurdish question unaddressed. The Cairo Conference of 1921 confirmed that the Kurds would not be given their own status, while the Arab elites were favoured. After the Armistice of Mudros in 1918, the Kurds began to intensively seek political status, which led to increased political activity. These developments were exacerbated by the ideology of the nation-state, which was based on a dominant ethnicity and caused ethnic conflicts between Kurds, Turks, Armenians and Assyrians.
Kenan Ayaz will continue his closing speech today, Tuesday, at 9.30 a.m. at the OLG Hamburg (Sievekingplatz 3).