Zehra Doğan/JINHA

ŞIRNEX - In the Kurdish town of Silopi, where police snipers roam the rooftops, JINHA spoke with children and their families about what the much-discussed notion of "self-government" means to them and why they are fighting against the police.

In just the last month, police brutality has struck twice in the town of Silopi, in Northern Kurdistan (in Turkey). On August 7, police attempted to invade the neighborhoods. As youth resisted, police began opening fire indiscriminately on neighborhoods, killing three.

On August 29, police raided a house and executed three young men inside. The very next night, a sniper shot a mother and daughter sleeping on their roof in the summer heat. 55-year-old mother Fatma Ay was killed, while her 14-year-old daughter Berfin Ökten was seriously wounded.

The people of Silopi have announced self-government, declaring that they will not recognize the institutions of the state. This spurred a wave of such announcements in towns and neighborhoods across Kurdistan. Tension is high in the town, where the majority of the dead have been children and young people. JINHA headed to the neighborhoods that have seen heavy clashes with police to take the pulse.

The land where teenagers lead

In the streets of Silopi, armored vehicles are parked at every single corner and snipers have been positioned on the roofs of state buildings. Some might ask "what business did a child have there?" every time police kill another of the town's children during the clashes. The sight of these streets provides an answer.

Children make up nearly half the town. They pour out of the houses when they see us coming, making victory signs for the camera. We're not far from the town of Cizre, where a teenage girl named Berivan became the leader of the "Cizre Uprising" in 1992. "In this place, 13 or 14 is pretty old," said Berivan at the time.

We head through streets covered in graffiti in praise of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The Turkish state and many others consider the PKK a terrorist organization. As soon as they see us arrive in the Cudi neighborhood, hundreds of children pour into the streets. They break out in a round of the "Rojava March," the anthem of the revolutionary autonomous region of Rojava, Kurdistan. We hop over the trenches dug around the neighborhood to find children standing guard with small sticks in their hands.

Children born under fire: 'we're fighting so we don't die'

"What is it that's making you so angry?" we ask an 11-year-old. He begins to answer: "My name is war. I was born in the middle of a war, but I hate war. Every day someone gets killed. We are protecting ourselves so we won't die." The sound of a sniper's gunshots cuts off his reply. A 23-year-old young woman approaches us with her 6-year-old baby.

"So is this baby in my lap a terrorist, too? Besides, what is a terrorist? If it's a 'Kurd,' then we're all terrorists," said the woman, introducing herself as Saniye Dönmüş. She is a mother of four. "This state needs to get its hands off our children. Who has the right to keep these children from sleeping at night out of fear?"

Five-year-old S.D. tells us about his fear, peeking out from behind his mother's skirts. "I'm scared. Our games always get interrupted," said S.D. "See that building over there? The man fires at us from there. When we hear the gunshots, we run inside and when it's over, we go out again."

Silopi teens: 'if the state doesn't like us, why don't they go away?'

A 16-year-old describes the self-government declarations as "civil disobedience against a state that doesn't like us." He gives his name as B.Ş.

"Seeing as no one likes us, they should leave us be and let us live by ourselves," said the B.Ş. "It's easy to talk from out there, but they should see what we go through here. If you have a heart, spend some time here--not long, just a night--and then decide who's wrong. What did we do to the state? When there wasn't anything happening, they attacked us just to start something. The only thing we can do is defend ourselves."

One of the most important descriptions of what has happened in Silopi came from an eight-year-old named S.Y., who said that he doesn't want to start third grade this year.

"I liked school a lot, but after all this, I made a decision," he said. "Even though I just bought my new school bag, I'm not going to school. Anyway, as soon as I leave this neighborhood, I'll get shot. I'll stay here and protect my family." We asked S.Y. how exactly he planned to protect his family. "By piling up rocks outside the door," he replied.

For 15-year-old D.Ş., the idea of self-government is an answer to this life under fire. He said that people on the outside misunderstood what "self-government" means.

"What, was this a great, trouble-free country and it's us that didn't want that? Just a few nights ago, a girl my age got shot and her mother was killed," said D.Ş. "Did you ever think about children's psychology in a place like this? It's torture to get an education in a language we don't know. It's torture to hear gunshots every night. It's torture to have tanks break down our doors and raid our houses. It's torture to pick up the pieces of our friends' brains….

"We're not doing anything but defending ourselves and making a new life, and it's just because there isn't a government that protects us," said D.Ş. "I don't think it's such a crime."

'These are just children who love life'

60-year-old Ayşe Tokay complained that the neighborhood youth are forced to fight with the police every night. She hangs a sheet of canvas at a particular spot on the streets everyday so that residents can pass without walking into a sniper's sights.

"Our eyes have run dry from crying for a different youth every day," said Ayşe. "These youth are just young children who love life. It's a pity; it's a sin. Their mothers and fathers suffered from this same repression; at least let them not suffer the same." She said that what those criticizing the PKK didn't understand was that the PKK are the people, trying to defend themselves.

A woman named Sarya described the night the three young men were assassinated when police raided the house next door to her. The children could not sleep until morning.

"We had to play with the children in the middle of a war," said Sarya. "We said that everything they were hearing was part of a funny game. We made our fingers into guns and played with them until morning. We told them the sounds were from fireworks, and that no one would die.

"It was a terrible night. I can still hear the screams," Sarya said.

(fk/cm)