The newly formed group, Coventry Peace Action, are raising the issue of Kurdistan with people in Coventry on Tuesday, by chalking information on city centre pavements. The Kurdish situation needs highlighting particularly at the moment because their leader Ocalan is currently on trial in Turkey.

There are 35 million Kurds but they have no homeland since The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 to which Britain was a signatory. The redrawing of national borders means that they now live mainly in Iraq and Turkey where they have been subjected to continual harassment and annihilation. At Halabja in Iraq in 1988 5,000 Kurdish people were murdered by chemical weapons. In Turkey over 3,000 villages have been wiped out and millions of Kurds forced into flight.

Coventry Peace Action member Becqke Young said

"We in Britain still arm Turkey despite their appalling human rights record. We sell them guns through Heckler and Koch, a subsidiary of British Aerospace and we send them Land Rovers which they convert to the armoured vehicle Akrep used for internal repression. Holiday makers to Turkey are unaware of their repression against the Kurds because the Kurdish South East is off limits to travellers. By our action we are raising some awareness of the plight of the Kurdish people."

Coventry Peace Action will be involved in many issues where there are human rights abuses, state violence and genocide.