The recent much talked about collaboration between Hadiqa Kiani and Turkish artist Ali Tolga as a tribute to Kashmir Martyrs and Martyrs of the failed coup attempt in Turkey has been removed from YouTube, Kiani confirmed on her Instagram.
The news was put up on Hadiqa’s Instagram Stories late night Tuesday, citing something else besides technical issues. “Our tribute to Kashmir was removed from YouTube a few hours ago.There seems to be a systematic silencing taking place but we will not be silenced because our message is of love and peace,” she wrote on her Instagram story.
In her next update she added that the international Civil society, The Kashmir Civitas was actively working on recording the video and she will keep her fans posted on any updates that she gets. So far there has been no update from her.
The track titled Diami Bahar – eternal spring. Is a primarily turkish track with stanzas in Urdu. Hadiqa sings the first half in Turkish and then shifts to Urdu in the second half. This hasn’t been Hadiqa’s first foray into the Turkish language, she recently covered another turkish track as a tribute to popular TV show Diriliş: Ertuğrul.
In a recent media conversation Kiani told the story of the tracks inception from the time when she was touring in Turkey back in 2005 and performed this track at the Atatürk Cultural Center Opera House in Istanbul. “The song actually dates back to 2005. At that point in my career I was touring internationally quite a lot and as a gesture to the host country, I would sing a song in their native language,” she said.
However, the song is now back on Youtube.