Turkish Paramilitaries during the Conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK

This paper focuses on how the paramilitary organisations of the Turkish state have transformed and been used over time as a ‘useful’ tool against dissidents, especially the Kurds. Paramilitary groups have been one of the main actors in the war between the Turkish state and the PKK, which has been ongoing for nearly forty years. These groups have sometimes been used as auxiliary forces and at other times made into death squads operating alongside the official armed forces, and they have mainly been used against Kurdish civilians who allegedly support the PKK, especially at the height of the war in unsolved murders, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings since the 1980. In this article, I argue that the Turkish state elites use this apparatus not only in domestic politics but also in conflicts in the Middle East and the Caucasus and that this paramilitary tradition of the state even extends to western Europe.

Development of a Convergence Model for Social Communication of a Philippine Catholic Parish Church

Social communication is an essential church activity considering the flock's profile and the COVID-19 pandemic. The study determined the convergence and divergence of the parishioners in a Philippine Catholic Church Parish in the City of Dasmariñas, Cavite on Respect for Life, using content analysis and survey methods as bases for the development of a model for social communication. Results revealed that respondents were 31 years-old, female, married, college graduates, or attended college, with the parish for 16-30 years, Sunday Church-goers only, and not members of any Church-based organizations. Parishioners had converging conceptions about the "War on Drugs," extrajudicial killings, and the death penalty even when they could not join Church activities. Parishioners' compliance was acceptable with five convergence points: the sanctity of life, proper appropriation of justice, expression of gratitude for life, healthy living, and understanding the social context of the pronouncements. With this, a social communication model for the Parish Church was recommended, which other parishes may employ.

EXECUTION OF PEASANT REBELS AND RURAL HOSTAGES IN TAMBOV PROVINCE 1918-1921

The article examines the practice of using the supreme punishment - execution, used by the repressive bodies of the Soviet government in the fight against peasant protests in the Tambov province during the civil war. The research was carried out on the basis of archival sources introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The work uses historical-comparative and systemic methods. An analysis of the facts of the execution of peasants carried out by punitive agencies during the suppression of rural "riots" of 1918-1919 and the period of the struggle against the uprising of 1920-1921 in the Tambov province is given. The facts of extrajudicial killings in the form of public executions of peasant rebels and hostages from among the civilian population, which were resorted to by the military-party administration in the occupied regions, were established. The role of the institution of hostages as a repressive measure in the actions of government troops to suppress the peasant uprising has been clarified. It is concluded that if during the period of rural "riots" in 1918-1919 execution was applied only to their organizers, then during the peasant uprising of 1920-1921 this form of the death penalty for "active" insurgents was given a systemic character, and the shooting of hostages from among local residents became widespread.

Postcolonial Aesthetics and Sensuous Geographies in Aruni Kashyap’s The House with a Thousand Stories

The place is fundamental to our existence; it conforms to the phenomenology of being in the world as we always occupy a place “if not with our minds, then always with our bodies”, to quote Moslund. The role of the senses in knowing the geographies of our existence, form a kind of structuring of space and defining of place. To understand the construction of sensorial-socio-cultural space of Assam at the time of extrajudicial killings that produces a ‘sense of fear’ jeopardizing the everyday negotiations of people inhabit the exceptional zones, this paper takes into account Aruni Kashyap’s debut novel The House with Thousand Stories (2013) that set in Hatimura village of Mayong area and deals with alternate retellings of micro-historical account of Assamese people. The paper dwells upon the artist’s creative response to the Agambenian ‘bare life’ that he associates with ‘bare’ or ‘pure senses’ to cultivate the idea of sensuousness of geography produced through the life stories of people and the interactions between human and non-human beings. Like Manipuri mother’s Naked March in front of Kangla Fort and Irom Sharmila’s sixteen years-long hunger strike that can be looked at as the metaphor for staging the ‘bare life’ against the body polity of the state, the sensual dimension of the geographic experience of Pablo, the narrator of the novel, in the village helps to understand the spaces of difference in the time of conflict.

From stage to street: The #Endsars protest and the prospects of street theatre

Globally, the issues of extrajudicial killings are on the increase. From racial killings in the West to wanton human rights violations in Africa, the pains are the same. Thus, protests has always been a channel employed by many including activists, labour and union leaders among others, to press home grievances and demands against unfavourable policies and social malaise. This paper draws attention to how youths in Nigeria utilised the physical space to spark a protest, in October 2020. Notable actors, musicians, comedians, activists and the international community in their numbers, moved to the street in defiance of security orders to protest against police brutality and harassment. In view of the outcome of the protest, which was later hijacked by hoodlums, the paper examines a non-violent alternative which can be used to address societal issues. It is in this context that the paper examined the role of theatre as a tool for activism, advocacy and communication with specific reference to street theatre, a type of improvised street drama performance that addresses unfavourable socio-political and cultural issues. The data for the study is obtained mainly from the internet, print media, observations, interviews and literary works. For its methodology, the study utilises the popular theatre approach. The study concludes that street theatre has a major role to play in addressing socio- political issues without resorting to violence.