Kurdish Peace Institute

On Friday, the Kurdish Peace Institute's Qamishlo office hosted its first conference, "Local Elections in North and East Syria: Opportunities and Challenges." We were honored to have the chance to bring together diverse Kurdish political parties, civil society organizations, and members of the media for a lively debate on the region's postponed local elections, avenues for strengthening the electoral process, and opportunities for developing democracy and participatory governance beyond elections alone. Nothing is easy in North and East Syria. Building peace and democracy from the ground up is difficult even under the best of circumstances —?let alone in a place where people were denied the opportunity to govern themselves by the Syrian state, faced an existential war to defeat ISIS extremists, and now live under Erdogan's drones and constant threats of a new Turkish invasion. But people here have not given up on a better future, and the international community has no right to give up either. We organized this forum because we believe that research and analysis, understanding, and open debate can be powerful tools in building democratic culture and finding peaceful solutions to conflicts even under the most impossible circumstances. We look forward to following up on the incredible critiques, proposals, and ideas raised by our participants and holding many more discussions like this one. I'd like to once again thank all of our speakers, organizers, and attendees for their work and invite everyone to publicize the panel. Report from North Press Agency (in Arabic): https://lnkd.in/erY-HJdp Report from Rojava TV (in Kurdish): https://lnkd.in/e4gg8tCy