On October 4, 2022, Kurdish reporter Nagihan Akarsel was killed with 11 bullets. The material perpetrator has been convicted but an international initiative calls for its recognition as political feminicide by the Turkish state
The work of the international initiative committee ‘Justice for Nagihan Akarsel’ started a year ago. The year before, on 4 October 2022, Kurdish journalist, academic and women’s rights activist Nagihan Akarsel had been murdered as she was leaving her home in the city centre of Sulaymaniyah, South Kurdistan/Iraq. Last year, more than 150 organisations and women from all continents and different professions appealed in an open letter to the United Nations, the Council of Europe and the Iraqi government to clarify the background of this political murder in order to hold those responsible accountable for their actions, as well as to take legal and political measures to prevent further feminicides and political murders.
On 24 December 2023, the murderer Ismail Rasim Rifat Peker, a Turkish citizen, was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq under Article 2.2 of the Anti-Terrorism Law. But neither the public nor the relatives of Nagihan Akarsel were informed about the legal investigation or the sentence. Thus, the relatives were deprived of the right to participate in the proceedings through legal representation. According to the court decision and media reports, Ismail Peker had previously been arrested in Turkey for assaulting a woman with a cleaver in December 2017. Although Peker was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment, he had already been released in 2022 after four years and two months in prison.
Suspicions about MIT (Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı), the Turkish secret service
In his statements to the South Kurdistan authorities after the murder of Nagihan Akarsel, İsmail Peker admitted that during his detention in Turkey he had been instructed and paid by a ‘Turkish state official’ to travel to Sulaymaniyah and kill Nagihan Akarsel. He admitted that during his stay in Sulaymaniyah he was guided in the planning and execution of this murder, in constant contact with Turkish intelligence officials from MIT.
They also provided him with the weapon to carry out the crime. The fact that Peker was employed by the Turkish secret service MIT had already been confirmed in a press statement by the Turkish ambassador to Iraq, Ali Riza Güney, a few days after the murder.
Despite numerous testimonies and evidence that Turkish state authorities organised the murder of Nagihan Akarsel and that several people were involved in the crime, only Ismail Peker was convicted. As far as we know, no legal action has yet been taken against the instigators of the murder or other accomplices, nor have political measures been taken to prevent further political feminicides.
A representative of the Middle East and North Africa Directorate of the European Union’s External Action in Iraq responded to our open letter last year, stating that ‘the EU office in Erbil continues to follow up on the various issues related to this murder and investigation’. However, it seems that no measures have been taken to protect the lives and freedom of expression of Kurdish women’s rights defenders. On the contrary, the attitude of the Kurdistan Region and the Iraqi authorities, the lack of sanctions by international human rights mechanisms and the political inaction of international organisations have encouraged the Turkish AKP-MHP government to further escalate the murder of Kurdish politicians, in particular Kurdish women leaders and journalists, inside and outside Turkey.
A long trail of blood
These include the assassinations of Sakine Cansiz, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Saylemez on 9 January 2013 in Paris, of Zeyneb Sarokhan on 22 September 2022 due to a Turkish army drone strike in the Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria (AANES) Region, of Emine Kara on 23 December 2022 in Paris, of Leman Shiwesh and Yusra Derwish on 20 June 2023 due to a drone attack by the Turkish army in the AANES Region, of Feryal Sileman Khalid on 18 January 2024 in Kerkuk / Kurdistan-Southern Iraq. Again, on 23 August 2024, a Turkish army drone targeted the car and assassinated Kurdish journalists Gulistan Tara and Hero Bahadin in Suleymaniyah Region / Southern Kurdistan-Iraq. However, after Saddam Hussein’s ‘Anfal’ genocidal operations, the Turkish army is now bombing and evacuating Kurdish and Assyrian villages, burning forests, and massacring civilians – men, women, and children – in the same areas of southern Kurdistan. From 2023 to July 2024, a total of 30 civilians, including four children, were massacred by the Turkish army in Southern Kurdistan.
We call on the bodies of the Council of Europe and the United Nations to take immediate and effective measures to prevent Turkey, their member state, from continuing to violate international law with impunity and to ensure that the real perpetrators of these political murders are politically and legally sanctioned.
In order to obtain justice for Nagihan Akarsel and all the others killed by the Turkish state and to prevent further feminicides against women’s rights defenders and journalists, we call on journalists, academics, artists, local and international human and women’s rights organisations to address the political dimension of these murders through press statements, articles and a series of actions and to work together to convict the main perpetrators of the murders.
In this sense, we renew our demand to ensure urgent measures to defend the lives and rights of Kurdish women and women journalists:
- Prosecution and conviction of those responsible for the murder of Nagihan Akarsel and all other extrajudicial executions.
- Closure of Iraqi and Syrian airspace to Turkish air forces, including armed and unarmed UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles).
- Urging Turkey to cease its illegal attacks, policy of occupation, war and systematic killings of women’s rights defenders and people living anywhere in Kurdistan, especially in the territories of Iraq and northern and eastern Syria.
- Prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity – including genocide and feminicide – committed by Erdogan and the AKP-MHP government, in accordance with international law.
International Justice Initiative for Nagihan Akarsel (29 September 2024)
An online conference for Nagihan Akarsel will be held on 13 October 2024.
For information: justicefornagihanakarsel@gmail.com
CLICK HERE FOR THE CALL TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS INTERNATIONAL ONLINE CONFERENCE
