PRESS RELEASE – KURDISH INSTITUTE – 23 april 2024
Has there ever been any evidence of a danger of terrorist activities from the Kurdish diaspora in Belgium and neighboring countries? Are people actually aware of where the real danger to our Western democracy lies? Will the West continue to make mistakes about the real enemies?
The Kurdish Institute is asking itself all these questions following the particularly brutal raid by the Belgian federal police on two Kurdish TV studios in Denderleeuw (Sterk TV and Medya News). The show of power and aggression was unprecedented and astonishing. More than 200 police officers, including special units, were called in last night, including water cannon. Employees of the TV channels were handcuffed, arrested and interrogated. Technical equipment and laptops were confiscated and doors destroyed.
According to the federal public prosecutor’s office, all this senseless violence was at the request of France, which is conducting an investigation into the financing of terrorism. And this brings us back to the questions we asked ourselves earlier. It has never been demonstrated that the two targeted TV channels have any connection with terrorism. Sterk TV and Medya News report on what happens on a daily basis in the Kurdish regions. Regions where Kurds and other minorities face continued repression and military attacks.
Moreover, France would be better off focusing on another enemy. We refer to the murderous attacks in 2022 in a Kurdish cultural center in Paris that left three people dead. And let us not forget the murder of three Kurdish women in 2013. That was also in Paris. Both the French prosecutor and the Minister of the Interior were then aware that the Turkish intelligence service (MIT) was behind these attacks. This was also testified by the French lawyer Antoine Comte. If that ain’t state terrorism by Turkey on French soil?!
As far as our own country, Belgium, is concerned, the Kurdish Institute asks why the rising Turkish extremism and Islamic fundamentalism are being left untouched. Are our policy makers really unaware of the fact that sympathizers of the Turkish Gray Wolves continue to infiltrate almost all our strategic sectors? In politics, the judiciary, the federal and local police, the business community, the socio-cultural sector, etc. Will our governments continue to tolerate the continuous preaching of hate speech in the Turkish Diyanet mosques spread throughout the country? Intolerance, homophobia and misogyny are almost a weekly occurrence. Do people in Western Europe realize that it is the Kurds who are saving us from a new wave of extreme terrorism from the Islamic State?
Unfortunately, all this provides further proof that the pressure on the European Union from Erdogan’s Turkish regime continues to increase. The fact that the EU gives in to this is a gigantic strategic mistake. Sometime in the future the West will have to admit this, but then we fear it will be too late.
