Remembering Kobane — and a rising female Kurdish politician

Hundreds turn out to bury Garibe Gezer in Dargecit district, Mardin province, Turkey

In the fall of 2014, the civilized world watched in horror as the so-called Islamic State expanded the territory under its control in Iraq and Syria.

The terrorist outfit had declared itself a global caliphate that June, then set its sights on the key Syrian border town of Kobane. Taking Kobane, a city of 50,000 controlled by the Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG), would give ISIS’ access to supply lines along the Euphrates, recruits headed south to join the fight and Syria’s main oil corridor, the group’s primary source of revenue.

By mid-September, ISIS fighters had encircled the city and Kobane had taken on global significance. American analysts began to describe the siege as “the Kurdish Alamo,” referring to the inspirational 19th-century battle at which courageous Texan rebels finally fell to Mexican forces.

The Turkish military, NATO’s second-largest fighting force, took up positions along the border, but kept it closed to aid and supplies. The US, supposed global cop and head of the anti-ISIS fight, took no action. Kobane is a tragedy, US Secretary of State John Kerry explained in early October, but the Obama administration had no plan to prevent its downfall.

Across Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, tens of thousands of Kurds took to the streets, urging Ankara, Washington, and the international community to intervene and avert a Kurdish massacre. The Turkish government issued a curfew and authorities used force to contain the protests, which turned violent in several cities and towns across the region.

On October 7, gunfire in the Dargecit district of Mardin province killed two protesters, including Bilal Gezer, father to a young boy. Hearing the news, Mehmet Emin Gezer marched to the district police station to ask about his brother’s fate. He was promptly shot by special operations police and paralyzed from the waist down.

Inspired by the suffering of her brothers, 21-year-old Garibe Gezer joined the pro-Kurdish Democratic Regions Party (DBP) and by 2016 had become the DBP leader in Dargecit. Turkish authorities, meanwhile, made several raids on the Gezer family home and opened investigations into nine of its members, including the mother and father.

In late summer 2015, the Turkish military put harsh curfews in place across the southeast after violence flared with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a militant group that has led an insurgency in the region for decades and is labeled a terrorist outfit by Turkey, the US and the EU. When Garibe visited her brother Hasim at university in Kutahya in March 2016, she was detained by authorities for violating curfew.

She was charged with being a member of a terror group and sentenced to aggravated life in prison. Her troubles had barely begun. As Garibe marked a year in jail, Turkish police arrested her brother Hasim. He was soon sentenced to 22 years in prison on similar charges. A few months later, while taking part in a hunger strike, Hasim says he was beaten by guards, who broke one of his ribs. He says he has been in solitary confinement ever since.

Meanwhile, authorities shifted Garibe from one high-security facility to another — Mardin to Izmir, Tarsus to Kayseri, and finally Kandira, near the Black Sea. During one transfer she says the gendarmes dragged her along the ground.

She has told her lawyers of weeks-long stays under 24-hour video surveillance in solitary confinement and having migraines and difficulty breathing due to her asthma and harsh chemicals used in cleaning her cell. For sharing this information she says she was given another stint in solitary confinement.

Last year Garibe set fire to her cell to protest her conditions. This year she says she has suffered beatings and sexual assault. A few months ago she attempted suicide, either to protest her time in a padded cell or because she could no longer endure it. Authorities neither treated the resulting head wound nor gave Garibe psychological counseling, according to her lawyer, who filed suit against the prison administration.

In September, pro-Kurdish legislators raised her case in parliament, hinting at broader public attention. Her imprisonment is troubling, but far from unique. Dozens of top officials from the pro-Kurdish HDP, including its former leader Selahattin Demirtas, have been in prison for years. The main pro-Kurdish party has organized protests in recent days to push back against its possible closure. And former parliamentarian Aysel Tugluk continues to languish in a Kocaeli jail despite having late-stage dementia.

Garibe’s torment finally came to an end last Thursday, when prison authorities found her dead in her cell. They say she hung herself, though her sister Asya disputes this and says Garibe’s spirits had lifted some when the two last spoke in November.

We may never know how Garibe Gezer died. But her lawyer Eren Keskin, one of Turkey’s top human rights advocates, believes the state is to blame either way. “This is a murder,” she told a Turkish news outlet.

Turkish authorities deny the abuse allegations of Hasim and Garibe as well as responsibility for the deaths of Bilal and Garibe. The officers were cleared in the case last month, but Turkish authorities have acknowledged the paralyzing of Mehmet Emin as its “mistake”.

Turkey changed its stance on Kobane a few days after that incident, in mid-October 2014, allowing US weapons and supplies to reach Kurdish forces on the verge of collapse. The beleaguered city was liberated from ISIS a few months later.

The Alamo is a worthy comparison because, as with the Texan rebels bouncing back to defeat the Mexican forces, Kobane turned out to be the beginning of the end for the terror group. The US soon shifted its anti-ISIS focus from Iraq to Syria, and the initial Kobane collaboration between the US and YPG led to a broader anti-ISIS partnership.

By 2017 the Kurdish-led YPG was drawing global praise for its bravery and heroism in spearheading the defeat of ISIS. This suggests that Bilal Gezer’s 2014 call for the world to intervene in Kobane and defend the Kurds was reasonable and just. Yet instead of getting any justice for his killing, his family has since suffered one tragedy after another.

On Friday evening, hundreds of Dargecit residents turned out to welcome the body of Garibe Gezer with applause and traditional shouts of rage. They marched to the local mosque and prayed as women washed her corpse. “We will not cry,” Mehmet Emin told the crowd, holding himself up on his walker. “We will stand tall.”

After Garibe had been buried next to her brother Bilal, their mother thanked all those who had joined the procession. “She is not just my Garibe,” said Halime Gezer. “She is the Garibe of Kurdistan.”