The Committee for Peoples and Beliefs of the KCK (Kurdistan CommunitiesUnion) issued a statement to mark the start of the month of Ramadan. 

The statement reads as follows: "The Muslim world is now entering the Islamic month of Ramadan; a time of worship that provides immense blessings and is the most important month of Islam. This year, Ramadan is being greeted by Muslims in the Middle East, among other places, in an atmosphere of war and widespread acts of genocide. Millions of Muslims will fast during this time of terrible suffering, loss by genocidal conflict, and agony. We hope that the month of Ramadan this year will serve as a time for reflecting on the problems and difficulties that the Muslim world faces and to focus on finding solutions. As a result, we call on the peoples of the world to unite and enhance their sense of unity and solidarity.

The massacres and tragedies caused by the Turkish state’s attacks in Kurdistan, as well as the Israeli state’s attacks on the Palestinian people- currently in their fifth month and are being carried out under the guise of Hamas attacks – are unrelated to Islam, Judaism, or the traditional cultures of the Middle East. Developing the democracy, freedom, equality and unity of all religions, beliefs, and peoples, as well as working toward the establishment of a democratic nation, will be our only line of defense as Middle Eastern civilizations against such violence.

In honor of the month of Ramadan, we urge people of all faiths, particularly Muslims, to rise up against the Pharaohs and Nimrod’s of our time who seek to incite hatred among communities and divide societies through religious discrimination. Even on holy days and months, the Turkish state continues to harbor hatred toward the Kurdish people, while the Israeli state knows no bounds in its animosity toward the Palestinian people. During these holy days, they slaughter women, young people, children, and the elderly. There exist, between these two states, several agreements and cooperation in the fields of military, intelligence, economics, and culture. Both regimes do not think twice to turn the oppression of the Palestinian and Kurdish peoples against one another when it serves their own interests. So, once more, we call upon the Muslims of Turkey and the mindful people of Israel to rise up against the mentality that uses the model of the nation-state to subjugate our just and moral religions, all through the month of Ramadan.

To the Muslim community,

According to the Qur’an, every act of resistance against those who abuse Islam to subjugate people, is regarded as a form of worship. It is stated that there is forgiveness and great reward for those who obey this directive. Because of this Islamic principle, all Muslim Kurds, particularly our people in Northern Kurdistan, are entering the holy month with great social responsibilities.

There are widespread acts of genocide against the Kurdish people. Their language is forbidden, and assimilation efforts are destroying their culture. The Kurdish youth are mercilessly being murdered each day with weapons prohibited by international law. Leader Apo, the leader of the Kurdish people, is being tortured and kept under an aggravated regime of solitary confinement. Kurdish prisoners are participating in hunger strikes and waging a fierce resistance. There are acts of genocide being perpetrated in South Kurdistan, Rojava, Şengal, and other Kurdish-populated areas. From this standpoint, the rebellion and resistance of the Kurdish people against these assaults are just as rewarding as fasting. This Ramadan, we call on our people to intensify their struggle against the massacre, denial, torture, and tyranny committed by the Turkish state—as evident and obvious as the Islamic truths. Because resistance is also a form of worship for Muslims under the attack of denial and annihilation.

As the month of Ramadan approaches, our people in North Kurdistan enter an important phase of struggle that entails heavy obligations. We would like to remind our people in North Kurdistan that the Kurds and the Turkish people will play a significant part in the electoral process. We want them to oppose the false Islam which brings about social regression and serves the state’s political objectives. Our people should support the groups that uphold and expand Islam’s democratic essence, that is, democracy and freedom.

We believe that Kurdish scholars and seydas, like every Muslim with morals and conscience, will fight more vigorously against those who use the name of Islam and its holy book as a cover for their evil deeds, against those who use the holy books of Muslims to deceive and slaughter Muslims. We think that this will be the most correct and moral attitude during this holy month. We expect them to be particularly sensitive to terrorist forces such as the ‘Free Cause Party’ (Hüda Par), which maintain intensive relations with the colonialist state and address Kurds in Kurdish in order to dissuade them from their legitimate cause.

We want to express that our people should act with the knowledge that anything done by forces such as AKP, MHP, or Hüda-Par, the enemies of the peoples, is done with the intent of using Islam for their own interests. They are profaning Islam, especially in Kurdistan. Everything they distribute under the name of charity during Ramadan, is haram. Everything given to the people by these thieves, plunderers, and lying hypocrites is actually stolen from the people. Today, in the name of Islam, these thieves will distribute a portion of what they have stolen from the people back to them, in order to win elections.

In this sense, the most correct attitude for true Muslims would be not to approach the stalls set up by such forces and to not take what they distribute. Because what they will do under the name of distributing charity is in fact bribery, and bribery is the biggest sin and the biggest haram. In this sense, we believe that Muslims of Kurdistan will show a conscientious, moral attitude, living and protecting true Islam against terrorist forces such as AKP and Hüda Par, which are infested in haram.

We would also like to remind that the fitrah and zakat given to institutions and organizations in cooperation with Turkish colonialism have no good deeds according to Islam. Because what you give to these institutions and organizations will come back in the form of weapons, used as tools of genocide against the Kurdish people.

On the occasion of this Ramadan, we also call on our Muslim people in North Kurdistan and abroad not to go to the mosques that under the influence of the Turkish state. There is nothing but denial, lies, slander, sedition, mischief, calls for massacres and hypocrisy against the Kurdish people in these mosques being sponsored by the Turkish state. These mosques, where sermons are given every day, propagandize insults against national identity, against religious feelings, against conscientious values, and deny the verses. We believe that it would be better to perform prayers at home, locally among neighborhoods, in modest masjids (mosques) that are prepared with one’s own means, in appropriate places.

Our people of South Kurdistan are entering this month of Ramadan under the attacks of the colonialist, genocidal Turkish state. We would like to remind our people of South Kurdistan once again that the economic, military and intelligence support that the Turkish state sustains from South Kurdistan plays an important part in the genocidal policy and attacks in all four parts of Kurdistan, but especially in North Kurdistan. The enemy of the Kurds, the Turkish state, is attacking South Kurdistan and our people in the other parts of Kurdistan for the purpose of occupation, by taking advantage of the material values and labor of our people in South Kurdistan and stealing from them through collaborators. Patriotism, religion, faith, morality and conscience demand that one stand against this colonial aggression in a more organized and stronger way than ever. We believe our people will make this Ramadan an occasion to stand against the Turkish occupation with a great resistance and turn it into a determination to end the occupation.

Our people of East Kurdistan are welcoming Ramadan this year with the women’s resistance “Jin Jîyan Azadi” which is in its second year. In this period of intense struggle against the Iranian regime’s regime’s oppression, we wish them to continue their resistance by increasing their sense of unity and solidarity, raising the belief in freedom and the women’s struggle.

Likewise, our peoples of Rojava and North and East Syria are entering this Ramadan under the threat and attacks of the fascist genocidal Turkish Republic. We expect our peoples in the region to welcome this Ramadan with more sense of struggle than in previous years, responding to the genocidal attacks, by uniting around the struggle, by taking an active part in rebuilding their society, and by organizing themselves strongly on the basis of self-defense. We call on our Muslim peoples living in the region to intensify their efforts to raise the consciousness of the democratic nation and to develop their organizations and democratic systems.

The dear Muslims of Kurdistan,

We are looking forward that all Muslims, especially the Muslims of Kurdistan, who are fasting this Ramadan month, would work to build unity between the diversse peoples and beliefs. We call on them to strengthen the unity between peoples, to eliminate hatred and to increase solidarity. We hope that the Ramadan of all democratic Muslims, especially the Muslims of Kurdistan, will be a month of beneficence, and we wish that their fasts, prayers and intentions will be accepted."