11/15/2023

Because of violations of international criminal law

German-Kurdish doctor files criminal charges against Erdogan

This week, Dr. Akram Nasan (66) – a German emergency doctor who was born in the Syrian-Kurdish region of Afrin – filed criminal charges against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The charges under §7 and §120 of the “Völkerstrafgesetzbuch” (Code of Crimes against International Law) in connection with §12 of the “Strafgesetzbuch” (Penal Code) are also supported by the Kurdish Community in Germany (Kurdische Gemeinde Deutschland e.V. ) and the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP). “By Erdoğan’s order, the Turkish army and their Islamist allies invaded my homeland Afrin in March 2018 in an internationally unlawful act – and have kept it occupied it ever since. My family members and tens of thousands of my compatriots were forced to flee. Hundreds of people were killed in the attack,” Dr. Nasan stated on the topic of the charges.  
“Our human rights organization has been documenting human rights violations and war crimes committed by the Turkish army and its commander-in-chief Erdoğan since 2018,” explained Dr. Kamal Sido, the STP’s Middle East Consultant, in Göttingen on Thursday. “Now, we are calling on the Attorney General to issue an arrest warrant for the alleged war criminal Erdoğan. He is guilty of violating international law in at least two cases: The attack on the Syrian-Kurdish region of Afrin in 2018, and the invasion of the Syrian-Kurdish region of Ras Al-Ain in the following year.” According to the Scientific Service of the German Bundestag and numerous other experts, Erdoğan’s army committed serious violations of international law in the course of the attacks.
Akram Nasan has been living in Germany since 1974, he still works as a doctor. He was deployed in various crisis areas with the International Emergency Aid (Internationale Nothilfe e.V.), helping in Bosnia, Kosovo, Angola, Gaza and the West Bank, Sri Lanka, Georgia, Armenia, and in the Iraqi, Syrian, and Turkish parts of Kurdistan. “Dr. Nasan has seen a lot of hardship and suffering. His house and land in Afrin was confiscated by the Turkish military and its allied Islamist mercenaries. The grave of his mother, the village cemetery, and a sanctuary were desecrated. Now, he is calling on the German judiciary. The Federal Attorney General, Dr. Peter Frank, should take action. The people of Afrin have been suffering under the terrible occupation since 2018,” Sido added. “The occupiers are not only trying to wipe out the people – but also their culture, their language, history, and religion. With his aggressive Islamization policy, Erdoğan is trying to turn the Kurdish Sunni Muslims in Afrin into radical Islamists who harbor hatred towards their Yazidi, Alevi, Christian, and Jewish neighbors."