(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has condemned the death of Ayfer Serçe, a young Kurdish journalist and militant, during an army operation against Kurdish rebels on 24 July 2006 in Keleres, in the northeastern province of Azarbayjan, and called on the Iranian authorities to provide an explanation. A Turkish national, Serçe worked for the Firat […]
(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has condemned the death of Ayfer Serçe, a young Kurdish journalist and militant, during an army operation against Kurdish rebels on 24 July 2006 in Keleres, in the northeastern province of Azarbayjan, and called on the Iranian authorities to provide an explanation.
A Turkish national, Serçe worked for the Firat Haber Ajansi (Euphrates News Agency – FHA) using the pseudonym of Silan Aras. She had gone to Azarbayjan in early July to investigate suicides by women in the region, which has a sizeable Kurdish population.
“We call on the authorities to establish the facts of this case,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We do not yet know if her death was linked to her work as a journalist but this possibility should definitely not be ignored.”
The FHA has accused the Iranian military of killing Serçe. It also reported that when her relatives went to the hospital in the nearby town of Salmas with the aim of collecting and repatriating her body on 24 July, they were told that the Iranian authorities had taken it away. The family was also stopped and searched when they arrived in the town.
Serçe is said to have been a supporter of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an armed separatist group that is outlawed in Turkey. Iran has often been accused by Turkey of offering a haven to the PKK and the Iranian security forces have recently carried out several operations against the group.
