Kurds celebrate the Newroz holiday in Diyarbakir, Turkey by Mehmet Masum Suer / SOPA Images
The Kurdish people living in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria in the Middle East are celebrating Newroz, the spring holiday. While some other Pre-Asian peoples also celebrate this holiday with festivities, the Kurds celebrate Newroz as a national holiday with picnics, dancing and musical entertainment based on a legend in history.
However, the Kurds of Turkey have been fighting politically and armed for the legal recognition of the Kurdish identity for more than 40 years. For this reason, celebrations in Turkey usually take place as political rallies and entertainments attended by hundreds of thousands of people. At these rallies, dances are danced, songs are sung and political demands are expressed.
The celebrations start every year in the third week of March and end with the final rally on March 21. Every year, the final rally is held in Diyarbakir, the largest city of the Kurdish region, enthusiastically by thousands of Kurds wearing colorful national outfits. Due to the earthquakes that occurred in the region and caused the death of about 50 thousand people, there will be no drumming, songs will not be sung at this year's rallies, and those who lost their lives in the earthquake will be remembered.
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