I don’t know which lie or disgrace I should start with. Let’s start with the facts.

The ancient black basalt city walls surrounding Sur were built during the Roman era around 350 AD declared a UNESCO world heritage site alongside the nearby Hevsel gardens in July 2015. Though the houses that lined the narrow labyrinthine streets were mainly inhabited by poorer Kurdish families, some 1,500 buildings in Sur were listed by Turkish authorities as historic and protected by law, including one of the oldest churches in the world, dating back 1,700 years.

In August 2015, the youth wing of the PKK declared Sur, and other parts of Kurdish towns and cities across the southeast, autonomous zones and erected barricades to keep security forces out. After months of bitter street fighting, military operations officially ended in Sur on March 9, 2016.

Satellite images clearly show the extent of the damage. The Sur Municipality Damage Assessment Report, dated March 30, 2016, also shows that the destruction caused by the conflict was limited to parts of the six neighbourhoods that make up Sur.

But instead of restoring the damage, on March 21, 2016, the government enacted a law expropriating Sur. Then, the demolition of the six districts, where curfews are still in force, began. They were bulldozed and destroyed. Dozens of cultural places, thousands of years of history, were destroyed by the state.

In the summer of 2016, while the destruction was still underway, construction work started. In contrast to Sur's historic texture, strange villa-type houses have begun to be built without consulting any architects, urban planners, or other organisations that know the authentic texture of Sur.