Kurdish journalist remembered in Maxmur

Journalist Rizgar Deniz (Rizgar Adanmış) was remembered in the Maxmur refugee camp in Southern Kurdistan (Northern Iraq). The media worker died on 18 December 2017 as a result of severe injuries he had sustained two months earlier in eastern Syria. Rizgar Deniz followed the final offensive “Cizîrê Storm” of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) against ISIS for several Kurdish media institutions in Deir ez-Zor. On 12 October 2017, the terrorist group carried out a bomb attack in the region. Eleven people, including media workers Hogir Mihemed and Dilîşan Îbîş, were killed instantly. Rizgar Deniz and 43 people were injured in the attack.

Rizgar Deniz was born in 1991 in Siirt in Northern Kurdistan. In the course of the state “counterinsurgency” against the Kurdish liberation movement and the village burnings by the Turkish military, the family was driven out of their home in 1993. At first they fled in the direction of Botan, but in 1996 they moved on to Southern Kurdistan. Two years later, Rizgar Deniz’s parents settled with their children in the Maxmur Camp, which had been established at that time.

The graveside visit on the fourth anniversary of Rizgar Deniz’s death was emotional and intense. His mother Meryem Adanmış kissed the gravestone and shed some tears before giving a short speech. “Rizgar wanted to be the voice of his people and all the oppressed, so he aligned his life’s path with freedom. He had a motto, which was: ‘I will protect myself as much as I can. But if even one photo should change the fate of the Kurdish people for the better, I would die without thinking.’ He had a strong will and great self-confidence.”

Journalist Jiyan Pîran also addressed the audience. She described Rizgar Deniz as a courageous champion of the free Kurdish press who had always been on the front lines of the war. “He did this to document the revolution of Rojava and in particular the women’s revolution and to share his images with the world. As his friends, our attachment is to the ideal of Rizgar Deniz and the path he walked to achieve it.”