Şemdinli ( ku, Şemzînan, script=Latn, syr, ܫܲܡܙܕܝܼܢ, Šamzdīn) is a town located in the

Şemdinli District Şemdinli District is a district in the Hakkâri Province of Turkey. The district had a population of 42,471 in 2022 with the town of Şemdinli as its seat. Its area is 1,209 km2. The district was established in 1936. Part of the district wa ...

of Hakkari Province in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

and had a population of 42,626 in 2021. The town is populated by

Kurds ug:كۇردلار Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Ira ...

from the Humaru and Zerzan tribes and moreover of mixed tribal and non-tribal origin.

Neighborhoods

Şemdinli is divided into the five neighborhoods of Beşevler, Karşıyaka, Moda, Yayla and Yeni.

Kurdish-Turkish conflict

Conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state forces

A bomb exploded in Şemdinli town centre on November 1, 2005. It was officially attributed to the

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of sout ...

(PKK), an armed Kurdish militant group. On November 9 one man was killed in a grenade attack on a local bookshop. The suspects of this attack, however, were caught in the act by bystanders. They were said to be members of a

Turkish Gendarmerie The Gendarmerie General Command ( tr, Jandarma Genel Komutanlığı) is the national Gendarmerie force of the Republic of Turkey. It is a service branch of the Turkish Ministry of Interior responsible for the maintenance of the public order in a ...

unit,

JITEM Jandarma İstihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele or Jandarma İstihbarat Teşkilatı (abbr. ''JİTEM'' or ''JİT''; English: "Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism" or "Gendarmerie Intelligence Organization") is the unofficial and illegal intel ...

. The resulting investigation developed into a major political issue in Turkey in the first half of 2006. After a lengthy legal process the three suspects were eventually sentenced to 39 years. Investigations concerning the Şemdinli bombing trial were blocked by the military, and all the judges and prosecutor associated with the Şemdinli bookshop bombing case transferred from Van to other cities following a June 2007 decree.Retrograde Human Rights Trends and Stagnation of the Human Rights Reform Process
4th part of the

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

July 2007 report titled
Turkey: Human Rights Concerns in the Lead up to July Parliamentary Elections
.

Clashes in 2012

On 23 July 2012, Turkish security forces began a major security offensive, backed by airpower, against the PKK around Şemdinli. Interior minister,

İdris Naim Şahin İdris Naim Şahin (born 1 June 1956, Ünye, Ordu, Turkey) is a Turkish politician who was elected to the Turkish Grand National Assembly in 2002, representing Istanbul. He was appointed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs on 6 July 2011 by Pri ...

, explained that the forces were attempting to block the PKK's escape routes into northern

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

, and that as many as 115 PKK fighters had been killed. Television news channel, Nergis Televizyonu (NTV), claimed that up to two thousand troops were involved in the operation. On 5 August 2012, PKK forces fired on a military post in the village of Gecimli, triggering clashes that killed 22 fighters, soldiers and village guards, and injuring 15 others, including five civilians. The military post was one of a number attacked in

Hakkâri Province Hakkâri Province (, tr, Hakkâri ili, ku, Parêzgeha Colemêrgê), is a province in the southeast of Turkey. The administrative centre is the city of Hakkâri. The province covers an area of 7,121 km² and had a population of 286,470 in ...

, although there were no reports of casualties in the other incidents.

Climate

Şemdinli has a hot, dry-summer continental climate (

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...

: ''Dsa'').

References

External links

* Today's Zaman, 16 April 2013
European court orders Turkey to pay 1.4 million euros over Şemdinli raid
{{DEFAULTSORT:Semdinli Populated places in Hakkâri Province Kurdish settlements in Hakkâri Province