Conference on Cizre held in Lyon

A conference about the massacres of the Turkish state in Cizre was held in Lyon. Speaking at the conference, Faysal Sarıyıldız said that the crimes against humanity carried out in Cizre were documented.

A conference titled 'Cizre self-administration' was promoted by Amitie Kürde in Lyon. The conference was dedicated to those who were killed in Cizre (province of Şırnak) between 14 December 2015 and 2 March 2016 and in the basements of 3 separate buildings.

The conference, attended by dozens of people, including academics, representatives of civil society organizations and a large number of French, was addressed by HDP fomer MP Faysal Sarıyıldız.

Reminding that Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan is responsible of war crimes against humanity in Kurdistan, Sarıyıldız said: "I witnessed war crimes in Cizre. Cizre was surrounded by hundreds of tanks which started to bomb the city. When Mehmet Tunç spoke to the European Parliament and explained the situation, he claimed that 'the state sends ambulances but they do not leave it enter the city'. In fact the ambulances they sent were not for the injured, but to fill the tanks. There were civilians, artists, journalists in the basements, and they were waiting to be rescued, but Erdoğan legitimized the massacre by calling them 'terrorists'".

Sayıyıldız continueds: "When we went days later, we found the burned bodies outside the basements. The journalist who sent us photos was Rohat Aktaş and he was burned by the state. The state wanted to remove the debris to hide the war crimes he carried out and all the ruins were thrown to the shore of the Tigris River. There were human body parts in the debris. We lived great war crimes in the 21st century, we traveled to all the European institutions with documents, but there was no institution to judge a despot like Erdoğan. Europe did not have an ethical approach. Democratic societies in the world today are walking alongside Kurds and this makes us happy and steps up our struggle even more."

The conference ended with a questions&answers session.