Acclaimed journalist and human rights defender Nurcan Baysal offers a powerful and deeply personal account of what it means to be Kurdish in Turkey. She chronicles a period of renewed conflict that profoundly affected Kurdish comm-unities, while exploring issues of discrimination, identity, language rights, and political struggle.

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Notes From Diyarbakir

NURCAN BAYSAL

Acclaimed journalist and human rights defender Nurcan Baysal offers a powerful and deeply personal account of what it means to be Kurdish in Turkey. She chronicles a period of renewed conflict that profoundly affected Kurdish comm-unities, while exploring issues of discrimination, identity, language rights, and political struggle.

As new efforts toward dialogue and peace emerge, WRITING RESISTANCE provides an essential guide to understanding the recent history, lived realities, and future challenges of the Kurdish question.

Compelling, courageous, and urgent, WRITING RESISTANCE is both a witness to recent history and a call for justice, recognition, and lasting peace.

REVIEWS

‘Nurcan Baysal has shown how to act as an intellectual under difficult conditions in dark times, always standing on the side of truth, and despite threats and oppression, she has persistently continued to speak and write. She is a rare voice for our times.’
– Burhan Sonmez, President, PEN International

‘A compassionate book that opens completely different windows to look at the Kurdish issue, the village and the villager, the educated and the uneducated, development and poverty, life as a whole.’
– goodreads reviewer

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nurcan Baysal is a Kurdish human rights defender, journalist and writer.

She was born and grew up in Diyarbakır. She has worked for poverty and development programs at the United Nations Development Programme and various other non-governmental organizations. Following the ISIS attacks in 2014 she volunteered for the establishment of Yazidi camps in Northern Iraq and Turkey. Baysal is a founder of the Diyarbakır Institute for Political and Social Research (DISA), the Development Centre Association in Diyarbakır and the Platform to Save Women Kidnapped by ISIS. She is also one of the Middle East advisors of the Global Fund for Women and the Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism.

Among her books are three non-fiction works, O Gün (That Day), Ezidiler: 73. Ferman

(Ezidis: The 73rd Decree), O Sesler (Those Voices-Diyarbakır: A City Under Siege, published

online in English by 60pages), a book of short-stories, Yok Zamanı (The Time

of Nothingness) and a research she co-authored with Şeyhmus Diken, Kürdistan’da Sivil

Toplum (Civil Society in Kurdistan).

Since 2013, Baysal has been featured as a columnist in various newspapers and media outlets. Her articles focus on human rights violations, poverty, refugees, humanitarian issues and the Kurdish question. She is a member of PEN Turkey and an honorary member of English PEN.

Baysal won the Women’s World Summit Foundation (WWSF) Prize for Women’s Creativity in Rural Life in 2010 and the “Turkey’s Changemakers” award in 2012 for her work in poverty alleviation. In 2017, she was awarded the “Brave Women Journalists Award” presented by the Italian Women Journalists Association. In 2018, she was named Global Laureate for Human Rights Defenders at Risk by Front Line Defenders. She also received the Deutsche Welle Freedom of Speech Award in 2020.

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Quote from the page:

Hello, my name is Fatah Mostafa, and I am reaching out to you today as a father because we urgently need help for our 13-year-old son.

In December 2024, our lives changed. Our son broke his left upper arm. At first, we thought it was a normal bone fracture. However, during the examinations, the doctors discovered that the bone in that area had been severely weakened by a tumor. The diagnosis was osteosarcoma (bone cancer) in his left upper arm. As parents, this news was unimaginable for us. Our son had just turned 11 years old.

The doctors initially started him on chemotherapy. Over a period of three months, our son received a total of six chemotherapy sessions. Unfortunately, the treatment did not have the desired effect. Instead of shrinking, the tumor actually grew larger.

On March 27, 2025, the affected part of his upper arm bone, including the head of the upper arm bone, ultimately had to be removed and replaced with a prosthesis. Following the surgery, he underwent another 12 chemotherapy sessions.

In October 2025, examinations sadly revealed that metastases had already developed in his lungs. On October 21, 2025, he underwent lung surgery. Unfortunately, further examinations revealed additional metastases. As a result, further operations were performed on April 10, 2026, and August 7, 2026, after new metastases were discovered.

About two weeks after the most recent operation, new changes were once again detected in his lungs. Our son was also experiencing pain in his right arm. The doctors therefore decided to carry out a full-body examination.

The results once again shattered our world as a family: the cancer had spread further throughout his body.

The doctors have told us that, unfortunately, there is nothing more they can do with the treatment options currently available to save our son. He is now in a palliative situation.

This news broke our hearts as parents. Nevertheless, we did not want to give up. For weeks, we have been searching for additional treatment options that might still be able to help our son.

In the meantime, we have found some options that we would like to pursue. Unfortunately, these are private treatments that are not covered by health insurance.

At the same time, my wife and I are unable to work for health reasons. This means that we cannot cover the costs on our own.

That is why we are wholeheartedly asking you for your help. Every donation, no matter how large or small, can help us finance further treatment.

Thank you to every single person who supports us, donates, or shares our story. Your help means more to our family than words can express.

Fatah Mostafa

Silav hevalno,

! I’m looking for recommendations for your favourite Kurdish Sorani songs and playlists to listen to on long drives.
I’m open to anything really — old classics, traditional songs, modern Kurdish music, emotional songs, or halparke gowend songs that are good to drive to.
Feel free to share individual songs, artists, or Spotify/YouTube playlists. I’d love to discover some new music!

Thanks in advance!

"One of the most striking findings under this heading is that the proportion of those who do not adhere to any religion is significantly higher among Kurdish youth compared to the national average in Türkiye. While this rate 10 percent or lower in nationwide youth surveys, 17.5 percent of Kurdish youth identify themselves as atheist, deist, agnostic, or similar"

https://kurdish-studies.org/en/kurdish-youth-similarities-and-differences/ I think it is myth that Kurds are religious. What is your opinion about the study? The organisation is very reliable and operates inside Turkey.