music freedom day

  • In Chengdu, in southwest China, in late 2022, people gathered on a street by a river. Most wearing masks and dark clothing. Candles were lit. Blank sheets of A4 paper were out. Held at chest height. Raised overhead… The kind you might tear from a notebook and never expect to use as a sign. But…

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  • On Music Freedom Day we remember the long and fraught struggle of Kurdish musicians in Türkiye. For decades, Kurdish artistic expression was systematically suppressed under a national policy that enforced a singular Turkish identity. Music, literature, cinema, and theatre in Kurdish were banned, their existence relegated to underground spaces or exile. It was not until the…

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