Cizre: Everything is not black and white

Cizre, a town in southeast Turkey, has been under curfew since Sept. 4, with entries and exits banned to the city. 

More than 100,000 people live in this city. The reason Cizre has been "under siege," according to official statements, is because the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has dug up ditches and has placed explosives on roads and buildings.   

Security forces, to be able to conduct their operations and reverse this situation, have turned the entire city into a prison. In a normal democratic order, this can be interpreted as collectively punishing everybody. 

It is an overall punishment, not discriminating between the guilty and the innocent. People cannot get out of their houses; a family had to keep their dead child's body in the deep freezer because they could not bury her.  

We do not know what other kinds of ordeals people confined in their houses go through because all kinds of communication with Cizre has been cut. 

However, the issue is too complicated to fit into such a black and white photo frame. One should look into what the PKK wants and not forget to also see that.  

In Cizre, upon the PKK's order, "autonomy" was declared. The first news that came was that two neighborhoods were occupied by armed members of the PKK.

Is it possible to think a state would not intervene when some armed people declare autonomy in a part of the country? 

Such a thing would not happen in any other place in the world unless we are talking about a country such as Syria, destroyed by civil war where the central administration has lost all its authority and command.

Would the PKK not think of this when it declared autonomy and occupied the town? It is not possible. They also knew that no normal...