Fréderike Geerdink: *Kurds can have millions of extra friends*

"On social media, somebody attacked me for calling security officers at #Erbil airport, (who didn’t allow me into the country and put me on a plane back home), ‘jash, or: traitors.

An absurd claim. This is literally the first (and the last) time in my life that I have ever typed that word, and it has never rolled from my lips. The word is not in my vocabulary, and besides that, I think it’s a dangerous term. It plays into the hands of those who want to divide Kurds by implicitly branding some Kurds as ‘not real Kurds’. Turkey likes that.

I do admit I was angry when it turned out that I wouldn’t be allowed to grab a taxi to the city and spend a week or so with the delegation from Europe that came to try to de-escalate tensions between the #PKK and the #KDP. And I do admit that I told the security men in the ultra-posh office between the passport desks and the luggage belts that they should hang a portrait of #Erdogan next to the portrait of #MassoudBarzani on their wall. ..."

https://medyanews.net/kurds-can-have-millions-of-extra-friends/

#Kurdistan #PressFreedom