-- The armed struggle for Kurdish independence did not begin with the founding of the PKK in 1979. It can be traced back to almost a century of persecution and segregation.
-- The 1908 Young Turk Revolution initiated dissent against the Ottoman Empire and laid the foundation for the 1922 Atatürk revolt. Its strong nationalist sentiments urged the elimination of minority populations -- the Kurds, Armenians and Assyrians.
-- Over the past eighty years, hundreds of thousands of Kurds have been killed by the Turkish state. The violent suppression of occasional uprisings also claimed many Kurdish lives. Sheikh Said Piran rebellion in 1924-1927, the declaration of the Republic of Ararat in 1927, and the 1937-1938 Dersim uprising are but a few examples.
-- The Turkish government has routinely imprisoned Kurdish members of parliament and human rights activists, and assassinated journalists and intellectuals.
-- The Turkish state has also imposed a policy of forced assimilation on Kurds which American congressman Bob Filner terms "cultural genocide." It had banned the Kurdish language from media outlets and government institutions, denied the Kurdish part of Turkey's history, and forced the settlement of Kurds in non-Kurdish areas.
-- The PKK's violent response made it easier for the Turkish government to label Kurds as "terrorists" and justify its campaign of segregation and persecution. It also gained the sympathy of Western powers already susceptible to the paranoia of "terrorism."
-- It was only in 2002, when Turkey's human rights record became an obstacle to its EU membership, that the Turkish government permitted broadcasting Kurdish radio and TV programs and allowed private Kurdish education.
(Compiled by Sonia Farid).
