Turkish ultra-nationalist films rap video in rubble of Kurdish city

Police in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir have launched an investigation after an ultra-nationalist rapper filmed a rap video in the ruined district of Sur, which has been under 24-hour curfew due to fighting between the Turkish military and Kurdish militants.

The video is titled "I Am Alone Father" and subtitled "in memory of soldiers martyred in Sur".

The rapper, who is masked in the video and referred to on YouTube as SAT5, prowls around the ruined buildings of the historic Kurdish-majority district spouting nationalist slogans and slamming the "Kurdish lie" and the "Zionist plan".

"Father we have veered away from the six pointer," he raps, referring to Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the six principles of Kemalism.

"Everybody awaken, stand up; they are all Armenians, all crooks. Who am I? The son of a Turk; the one who has been ostracised. The missionaries have taken over the entire place."

Far-right Turks often accuse people they deem traitors of being "Armenians" and the term has been thrown around frequently with regards to the unrest in the southeast.

The rapper begins the video picking up a gun and walks by posters of Ataturk and a pile of burning flags belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Syria-based Peoples Protection Units (YPG).

He gives a "warning to the youth being wasted away" that there is a need to "either solve the problem or hang those who create the problem".

"Love it or leave!" he adds, quoting the commonly used phrase adopted by Turkish nationalists from the American far-right calling on foreign elements in Turkey to either show partriotism or leave, while adding that he is "not a fascist."

"The solution is simple if you ask me," he concludes. "Shoot them in the head if they don’t change!"

The video ends with a black screen listing the names of police officers and security personnel killed in fighting in the southeast.

According to the Cumhuriyet newspaper, the Diyarbakir governor's office has launched an investigation saying that no permission was granted for filming such a video. 

Sur has been under curfew since early December, after fighting broke out between Turkish security forces and Kurdish militants belonging to the PKK "youth wing" the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H).

According to a report released by the opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) around 80 percent of buildings in Sur have been destroyed in the fighting, while the Turkish Health Ministry said that around 355,000 had been displaced by the fighting.

Thousands of militants, security officials and civilians have been killed since a two-year ceasefire broke down last July, according to the Turkish government, a figure Kurdish groups have disputed.