The defendant, sitting in a bulletproofed glass box, rambled on about the historic closeness of Turks and Kurds and the need to recognize Turkey’s vibrant, if somewhat flawed, democracy. His lawyers said little—their request to call witnesses was denied by …
Every Saturday morning, as tourists at the Greek Cypriot checkpoint walk past coils of barbed wire into the Turkish-Cypriot–controlled sector of Cyprus, Rita Mantoles is out pleading for help. On a small placard are the testimonies of her grief: faded …
Men with video cameras were waiting at the entrance to Cizre, a rundown city in Turkey’s Kurdish southeast. The cameras rolled when police pulled me out of the car and checked my bags, my body, and my press card. Behind …
Beritan was a seventeen-year-old Kurdish girl with a wide grin and a big gun. It wasn’t the gun that worried me so much as the grenades—two strapped to a cartridge belt around her waist. I had visions of an accidental …
In southeastern Turkey roads often lead nowhere. Along the narrow dirt paths and partly paved roads that wind through this mountainous region, stone and mud villages stand empty, casualties of the battle between the Turkish Army and separatist Kurdish guerrillas. …
