Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive:
Thousands of people demonstrated in Hasankeyf against Ilisu Dam!
On Saturday, the 17th October 2009, more than thousand people marched in the Tigris valley to the antique city Hasankeyf where they protested the planned Ilisu Dam and Hydroelectric Project. The people gathered in the village Kesmeköprü II and marched a distance of 4 km to Hasankeyf. The 12.000 years old city Hasankeyf and 199 villages in the Tigris valley are threatened by the Ilisu project.
The demonstration was done within the 6. Batman-Hasankeyf Culture and Art Festival organized by the municipality of Batman. Before the start of the demonstration a competition of boats was done at the Tigris close to Hasankeyf city, as it is done every year. Several hundred university students from neighbor universities participated in the demonstration which was done under the motto “From the Culture Garden of the Civilization to an honourly Peace”. When the demonstration reached Hasankeyf the participants blocked the main road with a sit down strike. During the following meeting close to the river two children folk dance groups did presentations, one from Dersim, a province which is also threatened by many dams. Furthermore during the whole day the photos of the Batman photo club about Hasankeyf and Tigris have been exhibited. When the evening dawned the concert started with several music groups. Thousands of people participated to the songs for several hours.
Last year a demonstration with 5000 people was done in the same time and framework. It was done some days before the credit guarantee was stopped temporarily by the governments of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. As known in July 2009 the contracts were cancelled by the European governments because Turkey did not fulfill the conditions set by the three governments. Currently the project is stopped, but Turkey and the Ilisu consortium (including Andritz, Züblin and Alstom companies) is still seeking for a new finance model. So the project is still not stopped completely.
Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive
Batman/Turkey
Tel: 0090-4882125053
www.hasankeyfgirisimi.com
hasankeyfgirisimi@gmail.com
