Kurdish Journalism Celebrates Its 121st Year

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Today is April 22, 2019, the Kurdish Journalism Day. It has been 121 years since the first Kurdish newspaper was published in Cairo.

The Kurdistan Newspaper published by Mîqdad Mîdhed Bedirxan came out in Cairo on April 22, 1898. As a result of the oppressive and censoring policies and practices of the Ottoman rule, the newspaper continued to be published in Geneva, Cairo and London.

Kurdistan Newspaper is considered to be the starting point of Kurdish journalistic activities and, hence, the date of its establishment is being celebrated as the Kurdish Journalism Day.

Accordingly, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has released a statement for the press on the occasion of April 22 Kurdish Journalism Day and said:

"Kurdish journalistic activities, which started in exile 121 years ago, have never given up chasing after truth despite the unlawful practices of oppressive regimes and governments."

'Effort to tell truths is never compromised'

The HDP has further emphasized in its statement that pressures and censorship, which have been present since the very beginning, could not prevent the struggle of Kurdish journalism:

"Several Kurdish journalists who set out to be the voice of Kurdish society in the darkness of the 1990s and who did not compromise the effort to tell and explain the bitter truths experienced in Turkey were massacred in the middle of the street, many of them were disappeared after being detained, several of them were punished by being imprisoned."

In the statement of the HDP, it has been further underlined that after the declaration of State of Emergency in the wake of July 15 coup attempt in 2016, several media organizations were closed by Statutory Decrees, journalists were arrested, prosecuted and convicted. (HK/SD)