Ismail Besikci is a renown Turkish sociologist who specializes on Kurds in south-eastern Turkey. He has authored several important works on Kurdish social organization and the continuing plight of Kurds today. He has also been imprisoned in Turkey most of his adult life because he has spoken out on the Kurdish issue. He argues that Turkish state has been practicing a policy of genocide against Kurds over the past 80 years. International Colony Kurdistan is probably Besikci's most open critique of the present division of Kurdistan, an ethnically contigious area mainly between Turkey, Iran and Iraq - with a Kurdish population of over 20 million people. Besikci argues that, for all their political differences, there is a longstanding understanding between these regional states to deny Kurds the right of self-determination, and in Turkey's case, nationhood. Ismail Besikci's International Colony Kurdistan was originally published in 1991 and led to the imprisonment of the author. The book remains a roadmap for our understanding of the politics of the Kurdish issue today.
