Defend Kurdistan Rome organized a demonstration outside the Culture Office of the Turkish embassy in Piazza Della Repubblica in Rome. During the protest this morning, activists lit smoke to simulate the Turkish regime's cowardly attack with illegal chemical weapons in Kurdistan. The group called for mobilisation to inform public opinion about the war crimes of the Turkish fascist state.

The communique of Defend Kurdistan Rome includes the following:

“Since 19 November 2022, Turkey has been bombing Rojava (North-East Syria) and Bashur (Iraqi Kurdistan) relentlessly, striking civilian infrastructure to destroy any kind of service to the population.

We remember Kobane as the city that, with its resistance of women and men together, defeated the Islamic State. The YPG and YPJ Women's Popular Protection Units became a symbol of freedom and democracy for the whole world. Now we have forgotten and forgotten how important it is to defend this democratic model. It is time to start getting active and informed about the atrocities that Sultan Erdogan is carrying out in the territories of the Autonomous Administration.

In the bombings, which are costing the lives of so many people, in addition to warplanes and UAV drones, remotely piloted aircraft, Turkey is using chemical weapons. This type of weapon causes atrocious death, and its use is prohibited by the Chemical Weapons Convention drawn up in 1993 by no less than 194 states.

On 26 October, Şebnem Korur Fincancı, chairwoman of the Central Council of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), was arrested in Ankara, just a few days after she stated that chemical weapons attacks by the Turkish state should be investigated. In Diyarbakir prison, in Turkey's engulfed Kurdistan, three inmates started a hunger strike in protest against the use of these weapons.

Furthermore, Turkey itself admits the use of chemical weapons. Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar openly acknowledged in the Turkish Parliament the use of illegal tear gas during a military operation against the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) in northern Iraq. Investigations have been carried out by the IPPNW (International Organisation of Physicists for the Prevention of Nuclear Weapons) into this situation, but unfortunately, due to the ostracism of the nation states involved, it is always very difficult to gain access to the places where the attacks took place.

So far, we know that white phosphorus, nerve gas and chlorine are used.

We have to say enough to these massacres and start being aware of what is happening without closing our eyes. Erdogan is a mass murderer, a greedy bloodthirsty dictator, not the saviour the media portray in relation to the war in Ukraine. Let's not be silent!”