ANKARA - Dirk Campbell, father of Anna Campbell, who lost her life in the Turkish attack on Afrin, is preparing to take his case to ECtHR. Campbell told that he wants to draw attention to the regime in Turkey and the crimes committed by it.
Dirk Campbell is trying to take the body of her daughter Anna Campbell who was killed in the Turkish air attack on Afrin in March 2018. Campbell is taking his case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to find the body of her daughter in Turkish occupied Afrin and to expose Turkey's crimes. Campbell launched a crowdfunding campaign through CrowdJustice to cover the litigation costs.
YPJ fighter Anna Campbell (Helin Qerecox) was killed in March 2018 as a result of the attack of Turkish warplanes during the military operation against Afrin. Despite the time that has passed, the Campbell family still has not received their daughter's body. Father Dirk Campbell had previously started a legal action against the Turkish and British governments with a crowdfunding campaign to get his daughter's body. The Campbell family, which has exhausted internal authorities and has not yet achieved any results, is now taking their case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Stating that he has not received a response to his applications to Turkey to take his daughter's body to date, Campbell called for solidarity with the crowdfunding to bring the case to Strasbourg. Dirk Campbell told the Mesopotamia Agency (MA) about Anna's journey to Afrin, Turkey's attitude about not releasing Anna's body and the lawsuit process.
Can you tell us a bit about Anna?
Anna believed in direct action. She believed she would find herself by making some bold decisions. She had decided to exist on the fringe of society and to question everything about social life. She thought fascism was at the root of the success of capitalism, which left people poor, powerless, and fundamentally immoral. This was her belief. We used to argue about it, but I respected her need to directly influence the world. She used to tell me that I didn't understand her. She used to say that I thought sending an e-mail to my MP now and then about things that bothered me would solve things but it wouldn't. She defended a bumble bee at school as a child. Some children were torturing the bee. Anna rushed to the aid of this bee, knowing she would be pushed around by this group. I think Anna was the kind of person who protected everything and everyone she loves.
How did Anna go to Afrin, what is her story? Did she tell you she were going?
No. She was in Syria about a year. She told me she wasn't allowed to go but she convinced her commander that she had to go. Her commander told her that the Essad regime only allowed Kurds to pass and they had to pass through the regime's territory, and she could not come because they would understand she was not Kurdish because she was blonde. She died her hair black. She insisted so much that they took her with them at the end.
When did you learn that she went to Afrin?
I didn't. Or to put it better, I learned she went to Afrin after she died. They informed me about her death on March 18, 3 days after she died.
Did she tell you why she went to North and East Syria?
She believed with all her heart that Rojava should be defended. She never told me she was actually planning to be a fighter. I went to Rojava after Anna passed to know her better, to understand why she went there, to learn what she thought. I saw the cemetery there. It was huge. It reminded me of Second World War. They gave me her diaries when I went there. She wrote, "I's june. Every body is sleeping. The house is really quiet. There are a lot of Pepsi cans and AK-47s around. Everything looks surreal. But I expected this. Ofcourse I am here. Where else could I be? They gave me a new name. It is the name of a martyred comrade. They told me it is a big responsibility to bear that name. I am all grown up now. I can shoulder that responsibility. A part of me thinks I can never go back home and that scares me. But it's too early to think about that. I have to complete the journey inside myself and do a lot of reading."
She wrote the following right before she went to Afrin, "I lied to my father last night. I am going to Afrin tomorrow. I am ready to die to defend these lands, but I don't want to." She had never been in a conflict situation before. But she couldn't handle the fact that her friends were going and she wasn't allowed to. In a video of Anna back in the camp she explains why she decided to go to Rojava. She says, "I never thought I could be someone who could contribute to the revolution here. They always thing anarchists are dreamers. I came here to see if this was really happening. I never regretted coming here, even for a minute."
How did you feel about your visit to the cemetery in Kobané?
It is devastating that so many YPG/YPJ fighters lost their lives in the ISIS attack on Kobane. Seeing the cemetery with my own eyes even though I know the facts, to look at a concrete evidence made what I knew more real. In the face of a hopeless situation such as Turkey's support for ISIS, I was amazed at the dedication of the people of Kobanê to defend their city at the cost of their own lives.
You have been fighting to bring Anna back home for a long time now. Have you tried contacting Turkish authorities?
First, I contacted the foreign office of the International Committee of the Red Cross, not Turkey. Five days before I left for Rojava, I started calling the Turkish Embassy. I called them over and over again for five days. I was going to demand that they provide safe passage to the place where Anna was killed because that area was now under Turkish control. I didn't get any response to my calls. I still haven't been able to get any response. It's been almost 5 years. There was no response to my requests to be informed, to my request for safe passage, or to my requests to speak to them regarding the human rights violation they committed because they prevented me from bringing Anna's body home.
Do you know where Anna's body is?
Yes. I know exactly where she was killed. Her friends told me.
Why exactly are you suing Turkey?
We are not technically ‘suing’ Turkey, however if the Court finds that there has been a human rights violation, it does have the power to award “just satisfaction”. This is a sum of money in compensation for certain forms of damage. The Court may also require Turkey to refund the expenses you have incurred in presenting your case. Furthermore, where it concludes that a member State has breached one or more of these rights and guarantees, the Court delivers a judgment finding a violation. Judgments are binding: the countries concerned are under an obligation to comply with them. Turkey, as a Member State of the Council of Europe has three obligations following a declaration of a breach of the applicant’s human rights from the Court: First one is to pay compensation, if awarded; second one is if necessary, to take further individual measures in favour of the applicant, to put a stop to the violation found by the Court and to place the applicant, as far as possible, into the situation existing before the breach and third is to take measures in order to ensure non-repetition of similar violations in the future.
You have started a crowdfunding campaign to bring Anna back home and you are taking Anna's case to ECtHR. What do you need to do that?
Essentially, my legal action which was started in September 2019 has come to nothing but we've had to go through all the stages required before we lodged the case with the European Court of Human Rights. We can't go directly there without having engaged the International Committee of the Red Cross without having approached the government concerned or the local authority concerned. And because they were very slow to respond in all cases, it's taken this long before we've finally reached the conclusion that we can't get any redress without going to the European Court of Human Rights ECHR. So what we are hoping for there is that the ECHR will make a ruling or a judgement that Turkey has breached my human rights and that it is obliged to redress that and to to observe international human rights in the future.
There are dozens of families like you who could not bring the bodies of their children back home. Your case might be a precedent if you win. Do you have a call to these families?
I only know the internationalist families and internationalist fighters. And as far as I know, all the young fighters who were killed, had their remains returned. On this occasion, because it was an invasion by Turkey, and it was particularly vicious and savage, we could not take back Anna's body. The Turks would shoot anyone who was trying to recover a body. They're also deliberately leaving dead bodies lying around in streets, very much the same tactics as the Russians are employing now in Ukraine, as a deliberate form of intimidation so that no, no fighters bodies have been recovered from that invasion. In fact, I've even seen video clips online of dead bodies being abused. Really horrifying stuff have happened there.
In the documentary, The Woman Who Went To Fight ISIS, you told that you went to Kobané after you learned that Anna was killed and realized that Anna went to her kind of people. If you happen to win the case and can get Anna's body from Afrin, will you lay her to rest in Britain or in Rojava, with her kind of people?
The truth is that we are very unlikely to find anything of Anna’s remains after all this time. The drone strike which killed her was very powerful and destructive and it is now over four years since she was killed.
You got to know the Kurds better after Anna has passed. What have you thought during that time? What do you think about the struggle of the Kurds?
Of course I support the Kurdish struggle 100% and I believe that Öcalan’s formula for self-determination of large ethnic populations within artificially-created nation states such as Turkey and Syria is the best way forward. However, I don’t think it will be easily implemented as it goes against the wishes of the dictators in those countries. There would have to be talks facilitated by some agency trusted by all sides in the respective conflicts. As Henry Robinson says, all conflicts end eventualy, so it is in the interests of everyone involved to bring them to an end as soon as possible.
Turkey claims that it is in a intermediary position in Russia's war against Ukraine. However currently it is attacking Federated Kurdistan Region. What is your comment on this?
I think Erdoğan is two faced. I think he is as bad as Putin. I think he tries to make himself look good. But he is a betrayer of everything that NATO stands for, and the UN stands for, or even though is a NATO member. He is a dictator and an oligarch. He has all the hallmarks of paranoid psychopath so that he will do everything he can to make himself look good, while in fact, committing human rights abuses. And I think part of what I'm doing with this legal action is to draw attention to Erdoğan and the Turkish regime and shed light on it on its activities. So that the West sees it. I don't know if a NATO member can be expelled, but I would certainly like to see Erdoğan be severely disciplined and removed. From what I've heard, he's very unpopular in Turkey now. So if there is an election forthcoming, which is not rigged, he should be voted out. But I doubt that he will allow that. I want to add something. I want to thank each and every one of you for doing this work fearlessly in Turkey as it is now. In essence, this was exactly what Anna was doing, which is trying to support and work towards a positive future, struggling with kind of weak forces against an overwhelming force. But still having that courage and that determination and that commitment to carry on despite everything. Despite its it being really ultimately hopeless. Because there's a spark of hope that's always there in us, in all of us, that that our work will somehow make the difference that is necessary
ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN
Campbell, trying to raise funds for Anna's case on the CrowdJustice website (https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/help-bring-anna-home/), invited everyone to solidarity for this decision, which might set a precedent if he wins the case. In his campaign statement in CrowdJustice, Campbell stated that her daughter was killed in an airstrike launched by Turkey in Afrin in March 2018, and said: "Anna was fighting with the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which has been supported in its fight against ISIS by the UK. However, more concerned about the Kurds at its borders than the threat of ISIS, Turkey launched a missile strike on the YPG, which resulted in the death of my daughter. Anna was a beautiful loving daughter, a feminist, an activist, a woman of courage who dedicated her life to fight for a better world for the rest of us. Anna’s remains still lie on the battlefield in Afrin, which is now Turkish controlled territory. We know the exact location. The British Government has failed to take any meaningful action and my requests to the Turkish Government have gone unheeded."
MA / Gözde Çağrı Özköse