Kurds in Germany
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
|
650,000-800,000 ~1.4% of the population |
|
| Languages | |
| Kurdish, German, (some knowledge of Turkish, Arabic and Persian) | |
| Religion | |
|
Majority Sunni Islam Minority Alevism |
|
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Iranian people |
650,000-800,000
Majority Sunni Islam
Kurds in Germany may refer to people born in or residing in Germany of full or partial Kurdish origin.
There is a large Kurdish community in Germany, numbering around 650,000-800,000 people. This makes the Kurdish community in Germany the largest Kurdish community in the Kurdish diaspora. In addition, most probably the Kurdish community in Germany is expanding as a result of the turmoil in Syria.
In Germany, Kurdish immigrant workers from Turkey first arrived in the second half of the 1960s. Thousands of Kurdish refugees and political refugees fled from Turkey during the 1970s and onward, from Iraq and Iran during the 1980s and 1990s, and from Syria especially during the Syrian Civil War.
Hatun Sürücü was murdered at the age of 23 in Berlin, by her own youngest brother, in an honour killing. The incident was widely debated and led to demonstrations against gender violence across Germany.
In October 2014, Kurds in Germany marched in protest over the ISIS offensive on the Syrian town of Ayn al-Arab, known in Kurdish as Kobani.
On 8 August 2015, thousands of Kurds in Germany marched against Turkish Army air strikes on the Kurdish PKK.
According to the German authorities, there were 8 Russian, 57 Turkish, 11 Lithuanian and 4 Kurdish gangs in 2013. The Blick and Nzz claimed that the Kurdish gang/motorcycle club "Sondame", allegedly "fighting" for a free Kurdistan, was formed in Stuttgart, and in 2015, it had about 1,000 members in Germany and Switzerland. The group is not well known and its existence is controversial. Other Kurdish motorcycle club and gangs include Median Empire and Red Legion.
Honour killings are also prevalent among the Kurdish diaspora in the West In Germany in March 2009, a Kurdish immigrant from Turkey, Gülsüm S., was killed for a relationship not in keeping with her family's plan for an arranged marriage.Hatun Sürücü was murdered at the age of 23 in Berlin, by her own youngest brother, in an honor killing. In a well-known case, Eren T. killed his pregnant girlfriend in Berlin and burned her alive. In 2016 a Kurdish woman was shot dead at her wedding in Hannover for refusing to marry her cousin in a forced marriage.
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Wikipedia