COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Danish Kurds who have fought alongside Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq say they will return to join the war against Islamic State (ISIS), despite the risk of prison terms at home.
"As Kurds we are fighting on the same side as the West. Why should we be punished for that?” asked Alan Gredar, a 47-year-old who has done three stints fighting alongside the Kurdistan Region’s Peshmerga forces and recently returned to Denmark.
He noted that Denmark is part of the international effort to arm Iraqi Kurdish forces in the fight against Islamic extremists. It has sent a 55-person military team as well as emergency aid and weapons to help the Peshmerga. Denmark is also helping with the US-led airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq.
But Denmark’s dominant Liberal Party (Venstre) wants to punish citizens traveling to “terror zones” such as Syria and Iraq with prison terms of up to six years, regardless of which side the volunteers fight on.
The Danish government has declared itself open to that proposal. It is concerned about citizens going to Syria to join the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is affiliated to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an organization outlawed by the European Union and United States.
"It should be punishable to fight for an organization related to the PKK,” MP Martin Henriksen from the Danish People's Party told Rudaw. “If they receive bomb training down there and return, we may risk problems here!”
Trine Bramsen, spokesperson for the ruling Social Democratic party, told Rudaw it is already illegal to join organizations on the EU terror list. "Our recommendation is that people refrains from going to war on their own,” she said.
Joanna Palani, a 21-year-old Kurd from Iran, dropped out of college last fall to join YPJ, the YPG's women's wing. She fought in Kobane, the Syrian Kurdish city that was liberated from ISIS in January.
"As a Kurd, woman and human being it is hard to sit on the couch at home in safe Denmark while my people are being ethnically cleansed," she told the Danish newspaper Information. “If that makes me a terrorist, what does it note make them, the politicians who want to prevent me from coming here?"
Sofi Cengi, who joined the Kurdistan Region’s Peshmerga before returning to Copenhagen, said he did not care about what the politicians say. “I would go it again, because I can’t just sit here and watch while ISIS attacks my people,” said Cengi.
And it is not only Danish Kurds who are volunteering to fight ISIS. Some native Danes also have done volunteer service.
"I will go there again. I can’t just turn my back to a people who are being abused,” said Jorgen Nicolai, a native of Denmark who fought with the YPG.
Nicolai, who gave up his job as a technician in Denmark to join the fight against ISIS in Syria, is known as “Heval Jorgen” among the Kurds. The 41-year-old has a background in the Danish defense forces, where he was trained as a marksman.
Several months ago he left his wife and child behind in Denmark to join fight with the YPG.
“I understand that the Danish politicians want to prevent its nationals from going there and get killed. Or that they want to prevent people from joining ISIS,” he told Rudaw.
"But the Kurds have right to defend their country, so the proposal (to punish volunteers) is totally wrong. You have to find a way so it does not hit all those who go to Syria and Iraq."
No European Kurd has so far been punished for wanting to fight ISIS, though in Britain there is a case under way.
Shilan Ozcelik, a British girl of Kurdish descent, was arrested earlier this year at Stansted airport. Her supporters say she travelled to Brussels in an attempt to try to join the YPG or YPJ. She was arrested on January 16 as she returned from Brussels.
