Kurdish MP Delivers Fiery Speech in Turkish Parliament

Harut Sassounian

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN

In recent days, scathing speeches by Armenian and Kurdish deputies in the Turkish Parliament have been circulating on the internet. Last week, I presented the bold speech by Armenian MP Garo Paylan, delivered in April on the Armenian Genocide. This week, I would like to share with readers another fearless speech by Kurdish MP Gultan Kisanak. Even though this video was recently posted on the internet, her remarks were delivered in January 2012, shortly after the massacre of 35 young Kurdish civilians by the Turkish military in Roboski village, in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan!

Here are excerpts from her remarkable speech:

“”¦Those who don’t feel grief or shame for this situation and call themselves Muslim; those who don’t account for this situation, I question their humanity, their Islamic religion, and beliefs. Everyone is aware of what happened there. Is this how blinded your conscience has become? Is this your definition of humanity? ”¦How do you manage to be so reckless and careless about the massacre of 35 people? How do you manage to be so inhumane? First, you are going to stand up and apologize; get upset. That is if you’re a human being as you claim to be. If you have a conscience! But you are not doing any of these things and instead acting as if a fly or a couple of chickens died by an ”˜accidental operation.’ Shame on you! ”¦For 90 years, this country has been using the terrorism excuse and committing many massacres”¦. You are trying to exterminate the Kurdish people! There is no terrorism! ”¦ The Military Chief of Staff of this country said: ”˜We killed 40,000 people. We bombed the mountains many times. But still this issue does not end.’ You still cannot understand this truth! There are people there; and these people have rights! There are people there whose identity is being denied. There is a Kurdish issue. There is no terror issue”¦.”