FRANKFURT – On Tuesday, April 11, a group of students and activists from Defend Kurdistan gathered on the University Campus Westend in Frankfurt am Main to protest against the poison gas attacks by the Turkish occupying army in Kurdistan. The group let colorful smoke rise in front of the building and thus set an example against the deadly attacks in Kurdistan in recent months. A banner reading “Stop Chemical Warfare in Kurdistan” was held up.
In the speech given, attention was drawn to the location of the action: The IG Farben building, in front of which the group positioned itself, symbolizes Germany’s arms export business and its complicity with warmongers like Erdogan. It was Germany and German companies, including companies associated with IG Farben, that supplied the Turkish state in 1937 with manufacturing plants and precursors for poison gas, which was used to carry out the 1938 massacre in Dersim, in which up to 70,000 Alevi women and Alevis were murdered. The company IG-Farben, which the name of the building reminds us of every day, also took an active part in the Nazi extermination machinery in the 1940s, because it employed forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners in its own factory.
The activists emphasize Germany’s historical entanglement and call on the students to join the protest: in a place that to this day uncritically bears the name of this company, it would not be possible to study it quietly!
The group made it clear that Germany continues to supply weapons to war zones and would not prevent autocrats like Erdogan from using poison gas against Kurdish fighters and the civilian population. In their speech, the activists therefore demanded: Germany must be held accountable and end all diplomatic and economic relations with the Turkish regime. They are also demanding an independent investigation into the use of chemical weapons by the Turkish army and the establishment of a no-fly zone across Kurdistan.
The action ended with the words “Bijî Berxwedana Kurdistan !”.
