Dozens of people, including a number of families, gathered outside of the municipal building plaza on Sunday afternoon to bring awareness to the ongoing struggles of the Kurdish people in the Middle East.
“We’d like to let Canadians and Calgarians know that it is a kind of injustice going on in Kurdistan,” said Kaumarc Panahi. “People are massacred based on their beliefs.”
“We’d like the Canadian government and Canadian people to support Kurdish people in their struggle to gain freedom for all those people which are under pressure from ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria).”
The region of Kurdistan includes sections of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. Despite the fact the region’s population of 5.2 million is primarily Kurdish people, the Kurds have faced opposition for decades.
“We really want our own country, we’ve been suppressed for over 100 years,” said Tanya Zandi, a participant in Sunday’s rally. “We want to support our people. There’s lots of our friends and family who are dying and we want to get as much attention (to their plight) as we can.”
Many in attendance at Sunday’s rally relocated to Calgary to escape the violence in their homeland.
“These are all families somehow affected by this type of injustice from the region,” explained Panahi. “They are here from many years ago and they are recalling what they have gone through previously.”
“That is why they are here, to show their support for those people which are going through the same problems they went through years ago.”
“I am encouraging the Canadian government to support justice, to support humanity, to show support for those people who are fighting and struggling for their rights.”
