Kurdish, Turkish activists condemn BP sponsorship of British Museum exhibit

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kurdish and Turkish activists joined protesters at the British Museum in London on Saturday to condemn energy giant BP’s sponsorship of a new exhibition exploring an ancient site in modern-day Turkey. BP is part-owner of a controversial gas pipeline project in the region. 

The largest protest London’s top attraction has seen in its 260-year history was organised by ‘BP or not BP?’ – an environmental justice group challenging fossil fuel sponsorship in the arts in the age of climate emergency. 

Organisers say 1,500 activists, artists, and experts turned out for the event, dubbed ‘BP Must Fall’, outside the ‘Troy: Myth and Reality’ exhibition.

“In many countries people are starting to protest about climate change, to imagine a different future and to change things. But in Turkey, the situation is politically very different – it’s hard to speak out and these kinds of protests have been banned,” Zozan Yasar, a Kurdish journalist and activist from Turkey, told the crowd.

“Oil and gas projects like BP’s pipelines have cost many lives, but because of the sanctions placed on freedom of speech, few people are aware of this. By partnering with the Turkish government on gas pipelines, BP is helping to maintain this situation and is profiting from the silencing of protest.”

A group of 60 performers occupied the museum after closing, according to a Saturday night press release from the group.

Amid growing pressure from climate activists, several leading European cultural organisations cut their ties with oil companies last year, including the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, and National Galleries Scotland – leaving the British Museum increasingly out of step with the wider sector. 

Cracks are appearing on the issue within the museum itself, with trustee and acclaimed Egyptian writer Ahdaf Soueif stepping down from the museum’s board in July 2019 over the BP sponsorship and artefact repatriation.

The controversial Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) will pass through twenty provinces in Turkey. Owned by a consortium of energy companies, BP is a 20 percent shareholder. The pipeline runs through territory roughly 75 miles from the site of ancient Troy.

TANAP is part of the Southern Gas Corridor, a system of mega-pipelines designed to bring gas from Azerbaijan’s giant Shah Deniz II field into European markets. Costs associated with its construction and highly militarised security are estimated at $11.7 billion.

The European Union-backed pipeline is intended to allow Europe to diversify its energy supply away from Russia. Turkish officials say the pipeline will create jobs.

However, gas pipeline projects in Turkey have been wracked by controversy.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline cuts through the Kurdish-majority southeast of the country on its way to the Mediterranean Sea. Operated by BP and beginning operations in 2006, its construction saw wide-scale, international protest.

The Turkish government used its authority to limit the Kurdish community’s involvement in decision-making by holding meetings in the Turkish language and providing inadequate reparations for the land seized from Kurds to make way for the pipeline, a 2004 fact-finding mission by the London-based Kurdish Human Rights Project found.

Local activists were detained and beaten by police. The brutal treatment of activists during the BTC pipeline construction led the UK Government to accuse BP of human rights violations in 2011.

The Trans-Anatolian Pipeline has not experienced such protests on its piercing route through Turkey.

Campaigners say repeated civil society crackdowns by the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have rendered the public too scared to speak out. They say that BP is benefiting from a relationship with a repressive regime that is silencing protest and thus making it easier for BP to build its destructive and polluting projects.

“I was arrested and tortured for speaking out against the BTC pipeline. If the [Southern Gas Corridor] goes ahead, people living along it will experience the same repression,” Ferhat Kaya, a Turkish activist, told arts activism organisation Platform. 

Resistance is growing along the pipeline’s route, however. The incomplete final section is the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), beginning at the Greek-Turkish border, moving through Greece, Albania, and then offshore to southern Italy.

An Italian movement, including activists and local politicians, cited fears the pipeline would destroy their environment, and demanded the EU drop the project. 

The Southern Gas Pipeline is one of a series of controversial megaprojects run by Erdogan’s government that risk causing environmental havoc. Turkey is transforming its southeast with the massive Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) – which includes the construction of 22 dams, 19 hydropower plants, and irrigation projects covering 1.7 million hectares of land across nine provinces.  

The 12,000 year-old town of Hasankeyf has been completely submerged since the Ilisu dam went into operation. 

Erdogan is now pushing for a 75 billion lira ($12.6 billion) Istanbul Canal project. Opponents including the city’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu have branded the project too costly and environmentally destructive to local agriculture and ecosystems. 

Saturday’s action was the fortieth ‘BP or not BP?’ has held at the museum, where the oil giant has been a title sponsor of exhibitions for 23 years. 

“Unless BP ditches all new exploration for oil and gas and starts leaving existing reserves in the ground, it will remain on a collision course with the climate,” said ‘BP or not BP?’ activist Sarah Horne.

In a February 5 statement, BP’s new CEO Bernard Looney said he “understands the frustration and anger of protesters in London,” and “shares their deep concern about climate change”.

The British capital has been rocked in recent months by mass environmentalist protests organized by Extinction Rebellion.