The Democratic Kurdish Community in Switzerland (CDK-S) and the Kurdish Women's Association YJK-S have launched a three-day protest on Wednesday in front of the United Nations (UN) headquarters in Geneva against the use of chemical weapons by the Turkish army in Kurdistan. The action kicked off with a tribute to the guerrilla fighters killed by poison gas used by the Turkish army in its invasion campaign in the guerrilla-held Medya Defense Zones in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq), ongoing since mid-April. To denounce the employment of chemical weapons, some of the participants wear white protective suits and gas masks. A banner shows the photos of the guerrillas killed in chemical weapons attacks in southern Kurdistan in recent weeks.

Speaking here, Geneva Kurdish Community Centre Co-Chair Erdal Atasoy said, “The AKP-MHP fascist regime does not abstain from carrying out chemical weapons attacks to secure its own future. The UN and concerned authorities became a partner to these attacks of the Turkish state through their silence.” Atasoy defined the KDP’s betrayal for the sake of a single family’s interests as unacceptable.

Speaking after, the Democratic Kurdish Council in Switzerland (CDK-S) Co-Chair Selma Sürer stated, “We reject the massacre of the Kurdish people’s children in full view of the world by use of chemical weapons, which is defined as a war crime and crime against humanity in international law. As Kurdish women and Kurdish mothers, we will remain on the streets until these attacks stop and concerned states and bodies claim responsibility.”

Sürer continued, “As we conclude our sit-in action in front of the UN, Kurds and their friends will express their demands in a march to be staged from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to the United Nations headquarters. We call on the people of Kurdistan and all those who side with democracy to join the march.”