The "Latin America Turkey Cultural Festival" organised by the Science Education Aesthetic Culture Art Research Foundation ( BEKSAV ) to make the struggle and culture of the Latinamerican people meet with the people of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan has started on August 22.
The festival will take place in different cities such as Ankara, Bursa, Izmir, Adana, Antakya, Diyarbakir and Istanbul with free concerts and panels. The end of the festival will be realised with an open air concert on September 12 at the Old Sinop Prison which is currently a museum in Sinop, North Turkey.
The opening of the festival took place with a press conference on August 22 in the conference hall of BEKSAV with
Meli Witran Mapu and the dance group Purrun Adkintun from Chile, A.De Cuba from Cuba, the dance group Latin Fire from Cuba and Brazil and the music group Frapom from Venezuela. The music group Ayllu Chakuı from Peru will join the festival as well.
At the press conference, a statement was made in the name of BEKSAV saying that "the aim is to demonstrate the social and political portrait of this rebellious continent." In the conference hall, a banner was hanged up on which it said "Long live the fraternity of the people" in Turkish, Kurdish and Spanish. Another banner was also hanged up saying "Do not forget August 17, the pain of the people is common, the people of Peru are not alone" reminding the earthquake of August 17, 1999 in Turkey and showing solidarity with the people of Peru who had to face an earthquake catastrophe in the last days.