I am sure that followers of Kurdish news know about the  rest violence in Southeast Turkey/Northern Kurdistan, here are what other people are saying about it:

The Gateway Pundit covers the riots with the aid of Reuters. Simon Tisdall from the Guardian calls the violence the Kurdish Intifada.

Here is what others are saying about other News topics: 

Juan Cole and the Daily Kos finally catch on to the case of Dr. Kamal Sayid Qadir, which readers of the Kurdish blogs (and this site) know has been a topic of discussion for months now.  Way to go guys on being "in the know".

 Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the advantages of supporting an independent Kurdistan—an excellent read!

Vladimir on From Holland to Kurdistan writes a follow-up about the Halapja Muesum burning, serving as a nice pairing to my Global Voices article for this week. 

And I found another link to a Kurdish blog although I have no idea what it says, I will add Kobani to the sidebar.

They had some new templates and I felt like a change.

What makes a people, a people? What defines a group: a common voice, a common history, culture, a blogging engine? Just as the Iranians, the Kurds celebrate New Year or Newroz every March. Among the celebrations and the well wishes given, there is an underlying sadness and strength that defines the Kurdish people during this holiday. Some say that it is the legend of Kawa that unites them while others believe that the history of violence against the Kurds is the backbone of their identity. March is the month of many anniversaries for the Kurds, violence in Syria, violence in Iran, but most notably the horror that occurred in the village of Halapja in 1988….and Halapja was the center of a new resurgance of violence this year.

Halapja burned once more this March, but not for the reasons you would think.

Let's first cover the issue of the importance of Halapja if you are unfamilar. As part of Saddam's Anfal Campaign in March of 1988, a mixture of various chemical weapons/gases were dropped on the village of Halapja, resulting in the deaths of over 5000 Kurds in a few short days. Images of this are truly heartbreaking, with the environmental and social impacts still being felt to this day.

This year, on the 18th Anniversary of the tragedy, students used the commemoration as an opportunity to protest the Kurdistan Regionals Government's corruption and lack of social services. The students were blocked at the gates, one demostrator was shot. The Halapja memorial became a symbol of the corruption, a place to take national guests but a place denied to those it honors…more violence erupted and the monument was burned to the ground. For Americans who are looking for an equivlent, imagine the Holocaust museum being destroyed in Washington DC. Some good has come from this, the KRG has apologized for the death and being the cause of the event; one can only hope that perhaps in destroying such a symbol that the government will learn to take the people's demands seriously.

Reactions to the burning of the monument are mixed, as a blogger myself I am still at a loss to define how I feel about this. The overwhelming sentiment is divided into two: those who are appalled that a monument (viewed to the level of sacred) could be and was so easily destroyed by the very people that it honors, or those who regret what happened but are grateful for the protest victory that has been hard won in this situation. Was this a needed sacrifice? I'll leave the decision of that to you.

I know Delal will be surprised by this post, but I wanted to write this myself with her permission off course!

Mr.Shaswari, the Kurdish Software Engineer from east Kurdistan has made the move to build the first Kurdish blogger engine and it is in a lovely shape and form ready for Kuridsh bloggers to use it. Some poeple have already booked their spaces on board, although he is still working on improving it.

Mr.Shaswari was the man who won a computing prize last year.

I am helping him with testing and suggesting better Kurdish words for the interface and also some functionalities of the blogging engine.

www.kurdweblog.com is the current name and we are trying to get a better name, for example something like www.kurdblogger.com or www.kurdishblogger.com or similar shorter and possibly one or two words URL.

Me and I think Delal havent yet been able to find someone who could do some weekly translations from the kurdish bloggers.

Here is a list of other blog count links that you may or may not be interested in.

Syria Planet

Saudi Blogs

itoot

Wow, it’s Wednesday again, with school and several threatening comments on my personal blog today I almost forgot. But don’t worry dear readers, I am here to give you your weekly fix of Kurdish blogs!

For a quick update on last week’s column, I had reported about a blog site being abuptly taken down, it turns out that all is well and that particular blogger is back up and running again. Additionally, we had mentioned last week about a Turkish club singer who is working on a Kurdish film; Vladimir gives an update on his blog From Holland to Kurdistan:

I especially liked her answer to this question:” A kind of odd question for you Ozzie, How do you think the Turkish government reaction might be towards everything you’re doing for Kurdistan?” She said she doesn’t care and wants to unite Kurds and Turks. “We are neighbors and I want the two nations to live in peace and have their rights.”

The Is-Ought Problem calls for the internet publication of persecuted Kurdish author Marywan Halabjaye, who I erroneously reported as a female author last week. The fatwa against his life was issued for the book entitled: ” Sex, Sharia and Women in the History of Islam”.

Hiwa from Hiwa Hopes writes about a private screening he was invited to for the new film Ahlam.