Ismail Agha (Simko Shikak)

Seyid Riza

A quote from Seyid Riza, one you can find in many books (it is a letter from him):
"The government has tried to assimilate the Kurdish people for years, oppressing them, banning publications in Kurdish, persecuting those who speak Kurdish, forcibly deporting people from fertile parts of Kurdistan for uncultivated areas of Anatolia where many have perished. The prisons are full of non-combatants, intellectuals are shot, hanged or exiled to remote places. Three million Kurds, demand to live in freedom and peace in their own country." Page 208 of A Modern History of the Kurds by McDowall, David. The quote is copy and pasted from Wikipedia although I have the book and have verified that it is in fact in there. It is also in many other books that I have, all of which are written by non-Kurds.