Preparations have been completed for the 32nd European Kurdish Culture Festival to be held in Rebstockpark, Frankfurt, on 21 September.

Ayten Kaplan said on behalf of the Festival Preparation Committee: "We discussed the preparations for the 32nd Culture Festival and confirmed that all preparations have been completed. In our country and in South Kurdistan, the AKP fascist state and its partner KDP are fighting against the Kurdish freedom movement with illegal weapons and dirty policies, and they are trying to strengthen these policies with local forces. The Turkish state and the KDP are increasing their pressure, especially on women and the free media, and are targeting the Free Media workers and staff so that they cannot expose the dirty war and occupation policies to world public opinion."

Kaplan continued: "As a women's initiative that protects its own language, culture and identity, we will carry out our 32nd Culture Festival activities with the participation of international guests and various artists. In this event, we invite all our women to participate in our festival with their own colors and cultures in order to protect our culture and take a stance against genocidal policies.

The process we are undergoing shows that the genocidal policies implemented against us continue with an understanding that ignores our identity, culture and language. We find this period we are in important because we are expecting all of our audience to participate in our 32nd Festival as a will to embrace and defend our identity, culture and institutional structure."

'We dedicated the festival to the Zap resistance'

Festival Preparation Committee Member Engin Sever said: "An occupation attack continues in Kurdistan. We have to wage a great struggle against this attack led by the KDP, AKP and ISIS. We have dedicated this 32nd Festival to the Zap resistance. We all know that the freedom guerrillas are showing great resistance against the invaders and are dealing great blows against the AKP, KDP and ISIS. For this reason, all our people should take their place in the festival to be held on 21 September. It is important to boost morale at the festival in order to support the guerrillas who gave their lives for the Kurdish people and humanity."

Sever added: “We had previously said that many artists would participate and that the festival would be held with activities such as folklore, culture and children's activities. Ruken Yılmaz, who has been in our cultural program so far, will not be able to attend due to the Turkish government not granting her a visa. Hovewer, we can confirm that Şehribanê Kurdî will attend the festival. In addition, Bilind Ibrahim was supposed to attend the festival, but due to the pressures exerted by the government there, just like the pressures of fascism on Kurdish culture in Turkey, he won’t be able to attend the festival."

Şhirbanê Kurdî, Ömer Gundi, Erdoğan Emir, Hozan Zozan, Hozan Kawa and the Rastak group will attend the festival. We call on all our organizations, people who want freedom, our friends living in Europe to participate in the festival, and to be the voice of freedom and to take part in the festival as the voice of freedom fighters as well as of Leader Apo [Abdullah Ocalan]."