It is morning in Istanbul and there is a slight haze over the city. In the square at Kadiköy's crowded harbour some young people sell handmade jewelry from a table. They have put up a large banner that says 'Suruç'. It is about two months since ISIS detonated a bomb at a meeting with young activists who gathered in the town of Suruç on 20th July. The youths planned to hand over relief supplies to the people in the Syrian city of Kobane. Thirty-three people were murdered. They were young activists who, before they went to Suruç, had stood on the same square here at the harbour to raise money for the people of Kobane.
Higher up Istanbul's hills, in the city's poorer neighborhoods, a family sits on a staircase and eats bread for breakfast. The stairs lead up to a house with broken windows and a cracked facade. Between the houses hang the pro-Kurdish HDP’s flags together with clotheslines. It is in this neighborhood that HDP has its headquarters in Istanbul.
