Videos

The following is a recording of a session of the Peace in Kurdistan Ecology Network on South Africa and the resistance struggle of grassroots communities, held on 4 December 2022.

Moderators: Mahmoud Patel: Legal scholar, academic, and human rights activist. Mahmoud Patel is the Chairperson of the Kurdish Human Rights Action Group in South Africa.

Sameer Kasker: Law Lecturer with a Doctorate in Law on International Environmental Law, with a focus on International Water Law and sustainable development and management of water. Additionally, he is a specialist in Global Environmental Governance.

Speakers:

Zainulabideen Gaddafi is the Co-ordinator of the Zakzaky Foundation (Resistance media and community development), and project co-ordinator of the Mawaddah food Garden. He is the Founder of the Kensington 9/5 Food drive (weekly hotmeal feeding, weekly food packs, food parcels, toiletry packs, basic emergency relief). Zainulabideen is Director of Holistic Organised Path to Excellence (HOPE) (Youth rehabilitation and integration, anti-gang, and anti-drug activism) and a Deputy Chairperson, Kensington Neighbourhood Watch (Patrols, safety assistance).

Nonhle Mbuthuma is a Human Rights Defender who fights for land and environmental rights in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. In 2007, Nonhle founded the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC) to unite community members in five villages of the Amadiba Tribal Authority region to work together in opposition to destructive mining projects. She took part in the forming of this structure at the traditional community court Umgungundlovu Komkhulu (Great Place) in Xolobeni on the Wild Coast in August 2007. She is now the mostvisible leader of the campaign against the Australian corporation Mineral Commodities Mineral Ltd (MRC). A crucial link between the indigenous community and the ACC’s legal team, Nonhle also engages the community in farming and food security workshops and has launched such projects in local schools. Due to her work rejecting mining and promoting alternative means of economic development, Nonhle has been slandered as “anti-development.” In 2008, Nonhle survived an assassination attempt. In the past years, Nonhle has been reported to have received constant death threats and warnings, which have escalated since 2015 when the entire coastal community organised itself against an open-cast mine planned for the Amadiba coast. Nonhle calls herself a Human Rights Defender, whose demand is for land and environmental rights to make sure that the next generation will live in a safe environment.

S’bu Zikode is the founding President of Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA. (Shack dwellers’ movement). S’bu has strongly campaigned for the Right to Housing under the theme ‘Housing is a Human Right.’ His calling includes safe and dignified housing for all in our cities. Under his leadership Abahlali membership has exceeded 100 000, making it the biggest social movement of the impoverished to have imaged in post-apartheid South Africa. Zikode is the Swedish government global winner of the Per Anger Prize 2021. This prize is awarded by the Swedish government to individuals and organisations in recognition of initiatives of democracy and human rights.

 The shame of arming the oppressor against the Rojava Revolution  During the height of the COVID 19 lockdown, information was uncovered that plane loads of ammunition were being exported out of South Africa by a locally linked company, Rheinmetall Denel, to Turkey.  In particular, and of great concern to the Kurdish Human Rights Action Group (KHRAG) and the International Labour, Research and Information Group (ILRIG), these weapons are being used to try and crush the Rojava Revolution in Syria. In this public forum, the invited speakers will discuss the extent of weapons being exported to Turkey, how the South African state is violating its own policies about weapons being exported to conflict zones, why Turkey is trying to crush the Rojava Revolution, the consequences of this in terms of human suffering and what we can do as activists in South Africa to mobilise against this.  Şoreş Dirbesiye (Internationalist Commune)  Terry Crawford-Browne  Mahmoud Patel (Kurdish Human Rights Action Group) 

Thursday 7th December of 2017, 

European Parliament, Brussels Panel V,

 Moderators Marie/Christin Vergiat, Berivan Aslan Panelists: Mahmoud Patel, Jan Fermon, Sukran Sincar, Metin Rhawi,Rezan Sarica and Simon Dubbins. Closing session EUTCC Board Members Kariane Westerheim, Michael Gunter,Dersim Dagdeveren, Estella Schmidt and Thomas Miley