SIXTEEN ARRESTED AS MAIN CARAVAN REGROUPS IN GREECE (INTERVIEW) ~ Gabriel Fonten ~  Sixteen members of the People’s Caravan to Kobane, who were travelling inside Turkey toward the Syrian border, were detained by Turkish police yesterday (28 January), said organisers. The group included many young people and several female journalists, and it is unclear whether and when they will be deported. At the same time, the main car convoy of the caravan was stopped at the Greek-Turkish border and denied entry. Activists are currently considering their next steps. The caravan is drawing attention to the Syrian state’s attack on Kurdish Rojava, with Western complicity. Earlier, Freedom interviewed a participant in the Caravan, which left Vienna on 25 January. Could you talk about the progress of the caravan so far, how many people have joined and what organisations are involved? We started from Cologne in two cars with ten people. This morning we met with the other routes coming from Berlin and the south of Europe, we met in Vienna and are now over 100 people.  So I would say that with each step and each city that we go through, we increase in number and also morale and energy.  There are many different organisations inspired by the Kurdish freedom movement, but also organisations that are connected to the cause like comrades from No Borders.  We are travelling many hours each day in the car. At first in German cities we were able to participate in demonstrations with many Kurdish comrades. We stopped in feminist centres and community centres in general.  This morning we began our conference in Vienna and now we are heading to Belgrade. I think this is like really a reflection of how much the revolution of Rojava could inspire activists in Europe and how much it can make people leave behind the inertia that the system lulls us into. So I think this is a really important aspect of this journey. Of course our objective is to protect the revolution and the people of Rojava. But at the same time it’s also something for us to get out of passivity and to react to a world that is more and more intense every day. Also it’s not just Europeans, but some Kurdish friends and also some friends from Colombia. We are from Germany, France, Colombia and other countries. Austria, UK, Ireland. What are the aims of the Caravan? The aim is also to break the silence that we find especially in European and Western institutions and mainstream media about what is going on. It’s unacceptable because, yes, it’s also the legitimation of the European Union that made this (the attack on Rojava) happen. Obviously also the USA and Israel also.  We are concerned here with developments like Ursula von der Leyen sending 260 million Euros to Al Jolani, the interim President of Syria. This is something that legitimises this authority and is basically something we cannot accept.  I mean, there are different things we could say also. How much we should take responsibility for what the revolutionaries in Rojava gave for the whole world by defeating ISIS. So this also I think. https://cdn.freedomnews.org.uk/news/2026/01/signal-2026-01-29-005014.mp4 12 years ago, four years in war against ISIS, many people gave their lives, and now European institutions are legitimising the government that is opening the prisons that were guarded by the comrades and freeing thousands of ISIS militias. So actually, our action to defend Rojava is an action to defend all of us from a threat that just a few years ago was terrorising the whole world. It’s important for us to remember this. Why did you choose Kobane as your destination in Rojava? I think the fact is Kobane is under siege. It’s surrounded by the forces of the enemy and the villages around it are attacked by jihadist forces and the city itself is at risk of falling in the hands again of jihadist forces such as the HTS, the militia that is at the head of the Syrian transitional government. Also, Kobane is an important symbol of resistance for the Rojava revolution. It was freed 11 years ago on the 26th January by the revolutionaries of the Autonomous Administration from the Islamic State. And I think it was, if I’m not wrong, one of the first big victories also against the Islamic State. And so it has big meaning also that Kobane stays free. And so that is why we are we’re going towards Kobane and trying to break the siege of Kobane. At this moment the situation is really difficult. There are there are a lot of people that have had to move (to Kobane) from other areas, so it’s overcrowded and not everybody has a place to sleep. There was news of four children dying of cold in their sleep. So yes, it’s also a humanitarian issue at the same time as being, as I said, a strong symbol.  When do you expect to arrive?  I expect to arrive… There is a bit uncertainty in this moment because yes, we are afraid that the Turkish state will block us at the border. So right now we’re trying to to pass them and we will see. The idea is to coordinate with the comrades in Turkey. So we will not probably arrive to Kobane, but we will reach the border from Turkey to Syria to be able to put pressure and raise attention on what is happening at the border. The Turkish border is very close to Kobane geographically. We are organising day by day. It’s not certain who will arrive or when, it will be seen with time.  But there are also comrades that could arrive in Bakur, that is Turkish Kurdistan by plane. So yeah, actually there’s already people that under the name of the People’s Caravan are in Kurdistan and are, yes, documenting the repression by the Turkish state and are bringing solidarity to the comrades there. How are you funded? Can you tell us more about how you’ve managed the logistics of moving a large group of people across Europe?  Well, at the beginning it was I think mainly private money or money from the organisations that are organised (the caravan), but I’m not sure because I wasn’t part of the organisation in this sense. I was just doing media and also same thing for the logistics.  But what I can say is that this started from a small group of very determined people who with this objective in 3-2 days could organise this and also by working everyday.  So making the first step until Vienna, where there are more  solidarity structures. So that is structured in the Kurdish community centres where we could go to eat dinner or lunch or yes, just make a break from travel. And then from Vienna on, yes, it was planned basically day by day, finding contacts of comrades, yes, asking for support and asking to bring cars also. And also from Vietnam, we tried to really move as a caravan. So we decided to have the biggest car at the beginning, at the end, so that we could really be at unity and also from an external point of view be seen as all together and be all together.  But it was managed mainly by like pure will of doing it and also from people coming. In the end they came also self organising. What can people do to help and what is best way for people/our readers to follow/contact you? I think a lot of things are needed and a lot of different things. Yes, it is good to donate money, but I think the best, most important thing is really in this moment is to organise in your local place. If you cannot or don’t want to go to to the Rojava in this time, to organise, to mobilise the society in your place. For example, to open a group of RiseUp4RoJava, get in contact and link with the network.  Talk with people about it to get informed. Also this is really important because the war also is a lot on information level. There are a lot of propaganda against the SDF, against the revolution in a lot of media. Al Jazeera for example, there was a campaign announced by young internationalist women to boycott Al Jazeera because it was spreading, yes, information that SDF was attacking the population, which was not true.  Basically how to help is basically to get yourself organised because to support the change in Roava we also have to change our our self and our surrounding, especially with the focus of keeping attention on what is happening and mobilising. The best way to contact us is probably the Instagram account of the people’s caravan. There’s also a website and there is a mail address in their website. The post Turkey blocks People’s Caravan to Kobane appeared first on Freedom News.

TRIAL SEEN AS PART OF INCREASED BILATERAL COOPERATION BETWEEN THE UK AND TÜRKIYE ~ Tom Anderson ~ The trial of six members of London’s Kurdish community, charged with membership of the proscribed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), is ongoing at the Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey) in London. They have all pleaded not guilty to the charges of being members of the banned organisation and some face additional allegations relating to arranging and addressing meetings in support of the PKK. On the day hearings started (5 January), the London Kurdish Community and their supporters demonstrated with banners outside the Old Bailey. The trial is due to take up to three months and the defendants are Ercan Akbal (56), Ali Boyraz (63), Agit Karatas (24), Berfin Kurban (31), Turkan Ozcan (60) and Mazlum (also known as Mucahit) Sayak (28). The home raids and arrests coincided with a simultaneous police raid on the Kurdish Community Centre (KCC) in Haringey, sparking protests and hunger strikes. A number of high profile arrests of Kurdish people had preceded this, as well as raids on Kurdish Community Centres and media organisations across Europe during 2024. This heightened repression of Kurdish movements in Europe came at a time when Türkiye was stepping up its air and ground assaults on the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan and drone attacks on North and East Syria. The arrests also took place just two days before the 29 November assault on Aleppo by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS). Türkiye hoped to use this assault and subsequent takeover of power from Bashar Al-Assad to strengthen their influence in Syria and further the role of its Syrian National Army (SNA) proxies in efforts to destroy the Rojava revolution.  PKK has been a banned organisation in the UK since 2001, when the Blair government added it to the list of proscribed organisations following pressure from the Turkish state. The arrests came in the wake of a meeting in London between Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, when they announced new UK/Türkiye bilateral cooperation and trade ties. The PKK was founded in the 1970s as a Marxist-Leninist anti-colonial party aiming to end the Turkish state’s violence, discrimination, denial of identity and forced assimilation policies aimed at Kurdish people. In 1999, the movement embarked on a path toward its new paradigm based on three concepts: Women’s freedom, an ecological society and democratic confederalism, a form of stateless direct democracy. These ideas have inspired the movement ever since, and built a foundation for the Rojava revolution in North and East Syria, which began in 2012, and the struggle for democratic autonomy within Türkiye’s borders.  WHY NOW? The PKK and its imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan have been trying to make peace with the Turkish state over the last year and the Party officially disbanded itself and ceremonially destroyed some of its weapons in 2025. The movement has never carried out any sort of armed operation on UK soil, and the Kurdish-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces received tactical support from the UK armed forces during their fight against the Islamic State (ISIS). In 2020, the Belgian Supreme Court ruled that EU anti-terrorism legislation cannot be applied to PKK.  The fact that the Crown Prosecution Service puts resources into criminalising members of the UK’s Kurdish community can be explained, just like in the case of last year’s proscription Palestine Action, in geopolitical terms. The complicity of the British police with the Israeli embassy over Palestine action is well documented, and details are still emerging. Türkiye, for its part, is a NATO member and a key UK and EU ally, despite Erdoğan’s efforts to strip away the vestiges of liberal democracy within Turkey and to centre authoritarian power around himself as President. The Turkish state wants to crush the Kurdish freedom movement, both within its borders and across the border in North and East Syria, whereas Keir Starmer appears to be keen to enact repressive policies at home to further what he sees as UK foreign policy interests. At the same time, Starmer’s Labour government has presided over a shift in the way dissent is being dealt with in the UK. For decades euphemisms like ‘domestic extremism’ or ‘aggravated activism’ have been used to criminalise radicals while differentiating them from those they dub terrorists. However, since the proscription of Palestine Action last year the state has seemed ready to straight-up call people terrorists. Obviously, the PKK has been on the proscribed list for a quarter of a century already, but there haven’t been many actual prosecutions related to it. The state’s readiness to use terrorism legislation to counter dissent is likely to have fed into the CPS decision to prosecute.  The Kurdish People’s Assembly of the UK in a public statement is calling for “sustained solidarity” as “a refusal of isolation and criminalisation, and an affirmation that political identity, association, and community organisation are not crimes.” The post Kurdish community members plead ‘not guilty’ to PKK charges appeared first on Freedom News.

ISLAMIST ATTACKS AND GREAT-POWER MANOEUVRES PLACE THE REVOLUTION IN EXISTENTIAL THREAT ~ Blade Runner ~ Recent weeks’ clashes between Syrian state forces and Kurdish groups forces have developed into a multi-front assault on Rojava, threatening open war as a means of forcing it to integrate into an Islamist state structure. Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are resisting sustained attacks using drones and heavy weapons by Damascus-affiliated militias in Hasakeh and Raqqa, including near two prisons housing thousands of Islamic State (ISIS) fighters. SDF confirmed that repeated assaults on al-Shaddadi prison were initially repelled at heavy cost before the facility ultimately fell with thousands of ISIS fighters escaping, despite its proximity to a US-led coalition base that did not intervene. > The SDF has lost significant territory over the past week, including large > areas it previously controlled east of the Euphrates. Grassroots channels > report Islamist forces attacking Kobane, a city pressed against the Turkish > border to the north. Northeast Syria’s ruling Democratic Union Party (PYD) has > called on “Kurdistani forces to declare a general mobilisation,” warning that > “Kurds in Rojava face the threat of extermination.” The ceasefire declared on Sunday 18 January is being widely ignored on the ground by the coalition of Islamist forces — described in much of the mainstream media as the “Syrian government forces” — with attacks on SDF and YPJ (Women’s Protection Units) positions and civilian areas continuing. Reports include femicides in Raqqa, executions of captured fighters, and assaults on residents attempting to prevent kidnappings. This escalation follows a wider wave of massacres across Syria, which the SDF, YPJ and Internal Security Forces have been attempting to contain. SDF leadership confirmed that following a meeting with the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and de facto Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa, alongside US envoy Tom Barrack, on 18 January, a 14-point agreement was signed under which its forces would begin pulling back from Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor. The SDF stated that agreeing to the ceasefire was necessary to avoid open civil war and to limit civilian bloodshed, as the Islamist coalition advanced west of the Euphrates into areas previously under SDF control, pursuing confrontation marked by severe violence and displacement. A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) unit in Hesekê (al-Hasakah) in northeastern Syria. Under the agreement, SDF fighters are expected to be merged individually into Syria’s defence and interior ministries. Control of border crossings, oil and gas fields — including the al-Omar field, where Shell moved to exit just as Damascus control was being consolidated — and detention sites holding Islamic State prisoners is set to transfer to Damascus. Limited concessions allow the SDF to nominate some officials for central government roles, and Hasakeh province is expected to receive a consensus-appointed governor. The agreement also requires the expulsion of foreign members linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey. In return, Damascus has offered concessions on language recognition and citizenship rights for Kurds, framed as steps toward national reconciliation. Kurdish political forces have rejected these measures as attempts to hollow out the autonomy project while delegitimising Rojava’s self-defence structures and collective institutions that guarantee safety and freedom for all ethnic and religious communities. The timeline for implementation remains unclear, but mainstream coverage increasingly presents a Syrian government portrayed as sufficiently consolidated to impose an impossible strategic choice on Rojava — a trajectory that could effectively terminate the revolutionary project. SDF leadership reportedly confirmed a further meeting with al-Sharaa in Damascus on Monday 19 January, after which additional details were to be be made public. The SDF confirmed withdrawal from Deir ez-Zor — Syria’s main oil and wheat region — and from Raqqa, home to major hydroelectric infrastructure, abandoning border crossings and its main base in the area and redeploying to rearward positions. https://cdn.freedomnews.org.uk/news/2026/01/Screen-Recording-2026-01-18-095854.mp4 Earlier in Aleppo, the self-administered Kurdish neighbourhoods — long a refuge for persecuted minorities — came under sustained attack by jihadist forces, resulting in heavy civilian casualties and mass displacement. SDF units withdrew alongside thousands of residents to avoid escalation into urban warfare. Subsequent advances pushed toward the surrounding countryside and the Euphrates corridor previously under SDF control. Alongside frontline fighting, autonomous sources reported attempts to destabilise the administration from within, including counter-insurgency agitation in Raqqa and around Hasakeh linked to entrenched tribal power structures. These networks, rooted in patriarchal clan authority and local economic control, have historically functioned as mechanisms of social discipline, suppressing women and exploiting precarious labour, and are reportedly being mobilised to undermine self-administration. State-aligned outlets circulated footage videos showing the destruction of a statue of a woman YPJ fighter — a symbol of women’s resistance against ISIS. The political symbolism is unmistakable: misogynistic violence remains embedded within forces now being quietly rehabilitated as state authority. Around the Tishreen dam, SDF forces resisted Turkish-backed Islamist attacks, with armed groups repositioning in nearby villages after tactical withdrawals. In Raqqa, SDF units detonated bridges across the Euphrates to slow advancing forces, while clashes continued inside and around the city. SDF and YPJ units reported ambushes and sniper operations against Islamist formations, including former ISIS sleeper cells. At the same time, mainstream media adopted narratives highlighting “crowds celebrating the city’s liberation.” The new agreement builds on an earlier draft signed in March 2025 that vaguely outlined integration into a unified Syrian nation-state — a framework fundamentally incompatible with Rojava’s confederal administration and the region’s multi-ethnic reality. Rojava has consistently proposed a horizontal, decentralised confederal model for Syria, which the US, Turkey and other major powers have declined to support. Women fighters from the YPJ in Derik (northeastern Syria) Turkish forces have meanwhile remained heavily mobilised along the border, signalling readiness for further escalation to compel integration. Kurdish organisations interpret US-brokered talks between Israel and Damascus on 5 January as part of a broader attempt to formalise informal zones of influence, with Israeli consolidation expanding in the south and northwest and Turkish pressure intensifying against Rojava under tacit international consent. The current regime in Damascus is openly backed by Ankara, which has pursued the elimination of Kurdish autonomy for decades as a long-term strategic priority. Kurdish self-administration in Syria and Iraq has also shaped political expectations among Kurdish populations in Iran, deepening Ankara’s anxiety over regional continuity of Kurdish autonomy and the possibility of a fourth Kurdish zone emerging within Turkey itself — a development incompatible with both Turkish state doctrine and western models of centralised state stability. According to PYD representatives, the new Syrian regime increasingly functions as an Islamist caliphate imposing religious governance while drawing on networks of former jihadist fighters and dormant ISIS cells assembled during the post-Assad transition. Remzi Kartal, co-chair of People’s Congress of Kurdistan or Kongra-Gel (KGK), reiterated that any arrangement imposed on Rojava that excludes democratic autonomy “will not be accepted,” warning that the military balance in Rojava would not mirror the collapses seen in Tabqa or Aleppo. The Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) likewise called for mobilisation and resistance, invoking the historic siege of Kobanê and urging that “the spirit of resistance of Kobanê must rise.” As fighting, ceasefire manoeuvres and diplomacy unfold in parallel, the struggle over Rojava is also being fought in how the conflict itself is framed. Mainstream outlets such as Reuters, AP, BBC and the Guardian present the situation primarily as a problem of territorial stabilisation, sectarian rivalry and nation-state restoration. This framing obscures a deeper political confrontation between authoritarian Islamist consolidation and a long-running experiment in communalist, feminist and multi-ethnic self-administration. The information war surrounding Rojava forms part of a broader effort to contain and neutralise the social revolution while legitimising the ultra-authoritarian forces now being rehabilitated as Syria’s governing authority — threatening communities with renewed repression, gendered violence and ethnic cleansing. The post State integration forced on Rojava appeared first on Freedom News.

IN TURKEY, SERBIA AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS, MASS MOBILISATIONS ARE RISING TO CHALLENGE CORRUPT REGIMES ~ Rob Latchford ~ Mass mobilisations in Turkey have seen tens of thousands on the streets for almost a week, an uprising inflamed by the arrest of the opposition-party Mayor of Istanbul. There have been 1,100 arrests amid scenes of police brutality. Large protests are also taking place in Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Greece, Albania, Slovakia, and Hungary. Will this wave of grassroots opposition fizzle out or escalate to economic shutdowns and a challenge to corrupt regimes across the region? In Turkey, demonstrations and marches continue daily in multiple cities. The Eko-Anarşizm blog reported that over the last days many student activists and protest leaders were detained in house raids in Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir, Antalya and Eskişehir. The grounds for detention included charges of “provoking hatred and hostility”, “provoking or insulting the people and “insulting the President”. The Student Collectives network announced the arrests on its social media account. “Your attacks are in vain. Your fascism is glass, broken!”, said the announcement. Sarachaneh, Istanbul In Serbia, there have been mass demonstrations over the recent weeks against President Aleksandar Vucic, who has been in power for 12 years as prime minister or president, and is accused of corruption and democratic backsliding. In Belgrade on Monday, thousands rallied against a plan by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner to transform a former army HQ bombed by NATO into a luxury hotel and shopping site. Meanwhile, there has been a wide response to the occupying students’ call for popular assemblies. These now operate in all 4 major cities and many other towns and neighbourhoods. According to French source Ricochets, “for the moment these assemblies seem to be of a very diverse nature, with either purely local concerns, or national concerns, or a mixture of the two and we also do not know if they are trying to coordinate or not, or not yet and if the students are trying to do so, which, if that were the case, would give rise to the embryo of a real popular power”. Belgrade On March 20, the residents of Lazurevac, 26,000 inhabitants, held their first Citizens’ Assembly. Citizens’ assemblies were also held in Loznica, in Cacak where the assembly voted for the mayor’s resignation, in Vracar in the Belgrade suburbs, in Stara Pazova, in the Kalenic district of Belgrade. In other municipalities such as Pancevo where the process is less advanced but is progressing in the same direction, citizens invaded the municipal council, in Šida they demanded that the municipal councillors resign, in Obrenovča and Kikida they insulted them, elsewhere still, as in Nis and Vlatocinje they bombarded the municipal councillors of the power with eggs or spat on them as in Sremska Mitrovica so that there is no longer a single municipal council or regional assembly that can be held while the first organs of popular power are emerging. Citizens assembly in Palilula, Belgrade Meanwhile in Sofia, Bulgaria, there was a large anti-government demonstration on Wednesday and again yesterday. The demonstrators are denouncing the electoral manipulation that resulted in a center-right government with the participation of the far-right and Putin’s left, but above all, they want the fall of the oligarchs who effectively rule the country over parties, and particularly Delyan Peevski. Many placards demand Peevski’s exit from the political scene. The local businessman, Bolloré, who amassed his fortune in the print media market, has long been the target of protesters’ anger. Thousands of people marched from the courthouse in the capital, Sofia, to the National Assembly, culminating in crowds outside the parliament building in Sofia, where words like “Mafia” were projected onto the building. The post Wave of people’s power in the Balkans appeared first on Freedom News.

ITEMS DISCUSSED IN THIS PROGRAM: VALENCIA ANGER AFTER FLOODING • FIRST CONTACT WITH OCALAN IN ALMOST 4 YEARS • TRUMP VICTORY AND THE ‘FAR RIGHT INTERNATIONAL’ • UK AT CLIMATE SUMMIT • AI JOB LOSSES The post Freedom News Review – November 12 appeared first on Freedom News.

SUPPORTERS HAIL PRISON VISIT A STEP TOWARDS A POLITICAL RESOLUTION TO THE KURDISH QUESTION  ~ Alisa-Ece Tohumcu ~   Supporters of incarcerated Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan have made a significant political breakthrough as Turkish authorities permitted his first face-to-face meeting with a family member for almost four years.  The Kurdish National Congress (KNK) reported on 24 October that Öcalan met with his nephew, Turkish parliamentarian Omer Öcalan, on Imrali Island, where he has been held in isolation since 1999. This meeting, facilitated after years of sustained international pressure, represents a symbolic moment in the ongoing efforts to end Öcalan’s solitary confinement and secure a political resolution to the Kurdish question.  “If conditions are favourable, I have both the theoretical and practical authority to transition this process from conflict and violence to legal and political grounds”, Öcalan stated in a message relayed through his nephew.   Öcalan, the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), is considered a terrorist by Turkish authorities and media but regarded by many Kurds as a political visionary. His writings from prison have since shaped a wide-reaching ideological framework known as “Democratic Confederalism”, which emphasises grassroots democracy and coexistence, am dos particularly influential among Kurdish communities in Rojava, northern Syria, as well as Turkey and Iraq.    Öcalan’s first direct contact in 43 months follows international protests and appeals to the European Court of Human Rights, which has condemned Öcalan’s isolation as inhumane.  The timing, however, coincides with heightened military activity by Turkey in Iraqi Kurdistan, where the Turkish army has expanded its presence under the pretext of creating a “buffer zone” to counter PKK influence. Since June, airstrikes and military incursions have displaced thousands of people and endangered hundreds of villages. The establishment of bases and checkpoints suggests Turkey envisages a sustained military presence in the Kurdish region. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photo: Kurdistan 24 The post First contact with Abdullah Öcalan in years as conflict escalates in Iraqi Kurdistan  appeared first on Freedom News.