Turkey’s main Kurdish football team has been fined for spreading “ideological propaganda” in favor of Kurdish forces in northern Syria, the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) said, according to Agence France-Presse.
Amedspor FC, which is based in Diyarbakır, the main city in the Kurdish-majority southeast, was fined 802,500 Turkish lira (nearly $18,500) and its president hit with a 15-day suspension from all football activity, the TFF said in a statement late Thursday.
At issue was a 20-second clip on its social media accounts showing a woman having her hair braided set to a soundtrack featuring the widely used Kurdish slogan “Jin, jiyan, azadi” — which means “Women, life, freedom.”
Over the past week, hair braiding has become a symbolic show of solidarity with Syrian Kurds as Damascus has pressed a military offensive in northeastern areas formerly part of the Kurds’ de facto autonomous administration.
In recent weeks social media has been flooded with clips of women braiding their hair in response to a video showing a Syrian soldier holding up a braid he claimed to have cut from a Kurdish woman fighter in Raqqa, which was recently taken by the Syrian military.
Although the claim could not be independently verified, it sparked an online backlash.
The TFF said the club was guilty of “damaging the reputation of football” by “spreading ideological propaganda.”
Contacted by Agence France-Presse, Amedspor President Nahit Eren said he had appealed the decision but made no further comment.
Eren, former head of the Diyarbakır Bar Association, had on Tuesday posted on X about “efforts to embroil our club in various controversies.”
Currently top of the second division, Amedspor could be promoted this year to Turkey’s top-flight SuperLig for the first time in its history.
