A German-Turkish mother on Sunday continued her protest outside the German Chancellery, demanding the return of her daughter who was forcibly recruited by PKK terrorists.
Expressing that she is trying for her voice to be heard by the German authorities, Maide T. said that there are many mothers who are suffering from similar PKK brutalities and yet fail to come to the forefront out of fear.
“I know that children of many families around Berlin recruited by the PKK, maybe 50, maybe 100. However, they are refraining from going public and ask for their children. Maybe they have been threatened. I also came across a similar stance. However, I have my mind on this cause,” she underlined.
“The number of people coming to my protests is not enough; however, I hope that more people will attend next week,” she said, referring to the plague as the main reason for the lack of interest in the protests. However, in Maide T.’s opinion, the coronavirus also caused the PKK terrorists to fail in recruiting more children.
She also said that in her last protest, she realized that a German reporter was covering them, meaning that they were finally drawing some attention.
Maide T. was flanked by a group of supporters who wore T-shirts with a picture of her daughter Nilufer T. with the words “kidnapped by PKK.”
The protesters held a banner saying: “Please, help me rescue my daughter from the PKK.”
In late May, she called on Chancellor Angela Merkel to help her out.
Inviting people to stand in solidarity with her, she said her daughter was influenced by PKK propaganda after she visited a cultural center in Berlin last year. Thereafter, she was forcibly recruited and probably sent to a terror camp abroad.
“If they come under pressure, they will release my daughter within 24 hours,” she said, urging German authorities to take action against the group.
The PKK has been banned in Germany since 1993, but it remains active, with nearly 14,500 followers among the country’s Kurdish immigrant population.
The terror group uses recruitment tactics among Kurdish communities across Europe, including blackmailing with the safety of family members.
Turkey has long criticized German authorities for not taking serious measures against the PKK which uses the country as a platform for their fundraising, propaganda and recruitment activities.
In its more than 40-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union, has been responsible for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.
One of the terrorist group’s commonly known practices is to recruit under-age children forcibly by abducting them from their families.
In Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakır province, dozens of families have been staging a protest for almost a year now, demanding their children back from the terrorist group.
The protest started when Hacire Akar turned up at the doorstep of the pro-PKK People’s Democratic Party (HDP)’s Diyarbakır office one night. A week later, on Sept. 3, 2019, families inspired by Akar transformed her solo stance into a collective sit-in protest. Akar’s son, Mehmet, returned home on Aug. 24, showing other families that there is still hope.
Since then, the number of protesting mothers has grown as they demand the return of their children, who, they say, were deceived or kidnapped by the terror group.
Nine families, whose children were kidnapped by the terrorist group, have been reunited with their sons and daughters so far.
“Unlike mothers in Diyarbakır, I feel lonely in Berlin,” she said, underlining that still, nothing is strong enough to make her stop her protests.
“I will not stop until I reach my daughter, my aim,” she emphasized.
The sorrowful mother also called on Turkish authorities to bring the issue to the table when they have talks with the German authorities the next time.
Related Posts
Discussion about this post