STRUGGLES

the taxi the police fired a teargas capsule from one ofthe Akreps directly into the taxi. The
windows broke and I felt the teargas capsule go past my head. The four ofus and the taxi
driver were inside with the cloud ofteargas. I couldn’t breathe. With teargas that always
happens. Ifyou’re someone with heart or breathing problems you're likely to die. We all
rushed out ofthe car. The teargas was so thick that ifwe hadn't got out then we could have
died. The canister nearly hit my head. I would have been killed ifit had hit me. The car was
completely ruined.
They were attacking everyone on the streets.
When we got our senses back we said that we weren't going to take any footage. We were
under the threat ofdeath ifwe continued shooting footage.
A green coloured Scorpion vehicle was used by the police to fire teargas from a little hole in
the vehicle. They open an opening, shoot the teargas and close the opening.
We found teargas canisters that showed that the police were using them past their expiration
date in Amed and in Suruç, on the border with Kobanê. There was a warning on the canisters:
“Ifnot used within six months it can cause fatality”.
The police used tanks, Scorpions, normal police vehicles and TOMA [water cannons] that day.
CW: What’s your opinion ofthe companies who manufacture weapons for the Turkish military?
I see it as wrong to hold the companies as primarily responsible. The nation state consolidates
their power by using these weapons. States need them to hold onto their repressive power.
Until this goes away, these companies won’t go away. But I see these companies also as the
killers ofchildren. Their directors are absolutely party to a murder.
CW: Do you think that governments should give licenses for the export ofweapons to Turkey?
voices from the struggles for freedom in bakur
Why is it that these weapons always get sent to the Middle East? Why is it that the whole
world fights its wars in the Middle East? Why is it that everywhere you go, on every street
corner here you see a policeman holding a weapon and he knows how to kill someone, and
when you go to Europe you don’t see a weapon anywhere? Why do we have to live in a land
where there are weapons everywhere?
Ifthese weapons hadn’t flooded the Middle East then groups like Daesh
couldn’t exist. And now it's at the point where people living here need a
weapon for selfdefence. A woman in the YPJ [Women's People's Protection
Unit in Rojava] needs to pick up a weapon.
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