Kurdish Community Centre event sees music, dance and sombre speeches
Thousands of people gathered in Finsbury Park on Sunday to mark the arrival of Newroz, the spring festival, in an event organised by the Kurdish community centre.
Despite the occasionally windy weather, flags were waved and songs were sung at the event, in which attendees danced and sang along to performances by Kurdish artists including Rojda, Cihan Çelik, Koma Serxwebun and Rojeya Stranen Jınen Kurd.
There were plenty of information stalls, offering pamphlets on a range of subjects from Kurdish political history to the PKK, and food stalls with a range of Kurdish cuisine options.
Also speaking at the event was Vasiliki Scurfield, the mother of Konstandinos Erik Scurfield, who died fighting militants from the so-called Islamic State group alongside Kurdish YPG forces in Syria.
“With the joy of Newroz, I offer my full support to the Kurds’ struggle in the name of democracy and peace. The Kurds have been the only force capable of standing against such barbaric people as ISIS,” she said.
“If it had not been for the Kurds, the situation in Europe and the world would have been very bad.”
The Kurdish Community Centre, which organised the ticketed event in north London’s Finsbury Park, said as many as five thousand people attended over the course of four hours on Sunday afternoon.