Tag Archives: freedom

Musicians Detained As Turkey Continues Its War On The Kurdish People

Trump and the U.S. government supposedly gave Turkey the green light on military strikes in Syria, again, attacking Kurdish forces, stating that they are developing terrorism in the area.

Kurdish musicians have also felt the consequences. Members of ‘Dewran’ who performs songs in Turkish language at weddings, as well as members of another band, have been detained on grounds of inciting terrorism with their propaganda.

We at Shouts call for these artists’
immediate release.

Unfortunately, the above mentioned musicians are not the only examples of artist oppression for the Kurdish people. Find more examples below and also check out our interview with Lee Brickley about his album ‘Songs for Rojava’.

Governor of Adana bans concert
Police officers wanted Kurdish music to be turned off in a cafe
Batman: “Kurdish songs forbidden”
Petition for Kurdish singer and her daughter jailed in Turkey

Free West Papua: 5 Songs Supporting The People

For many of us, West Papua is at the other side of the world, isolated and unknown. For others, the place is a well known human rights violation pit. Throughout the recent history of this occupied piece of land the people there have seen around half a million of their fellow natives be killed.

The fight is ongoing and the West Papua people ‘will not rest‘ until they are granted a referendum from Indonesia.

The occupied territory has long been put into song to support the people. Here are five songs titled ‘Free West Papua’.

TAKE ACTION

Cover photo disclaimer: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0). Link to original photo here.

30 Years Since The Singing Revolution

30 years ago, on the 23rd of August, 2 million people from three neighboring nations, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, locked their arms together and formed a human chain that stretched across the three countries.

The people demanded freedom from the Soviet Union and did so in a peaceful way. In Tallinn, Estonia, people gathered regularly at the a music festival ground bursting into spontaneous mass singing. From those events the term ‘Singing Revolution’ was coined.

More commonly known as ‘The Baltic Way’ this revolution saw millions of people organizing for their freedom and finding common grounds between each other through, among other things, music.

Boris Reznik composed the song below for this occasion and it is sung in the three languages, a somewhat of a mutual anthem for the three countries.