Human rights of Kurdish people in Turkey
This article needs to be updated.(April 2020) |
Kurds have had a long history of discrimination perpetrated against them by the Turkish government.[1] Massacres have periodically occurred against the Kurds since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Among the most significant is the massacre that happened during the Dersim rebellion, when 13,160 civilians were killed by the Turkish Army and 11,818 people were sent into exile.[2] According to McDowall, 40,000 people were killed.[3] The Zilan massacre of 1930 was a massacre[4][5] of Kurdish residents of Turkey during the Ararat rebellion, in which 5,000 to 47,000 were killed.[6]
The use of Kurdish language, dress, folklore, and names were banned, and the Kurdish-inhabited areas remained under martial law until 1946.[7] In an attempt to deny an existence of a Kurdish ethnicity, the Turkish government categorized Kurds as "Mountain Turks" until the 1980s.[8][9][10][11] The words "Kurds", "Kurdistan", and "Kurdish" were officially banned by the Turkish government.[12] Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public and private life.[13] Many people who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned.[14] But even though the ban on speaking in a non Turkish language was lifted in 1991, the Kurdish aim to be recognized as a distinct people than Turkish or to have Kurdish included as a language of instruction, but this was often classified as separatism or support of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).[15] Currently, it is illegal to use the Kurdish language as an instruction language in private and public schools, yet there are schools who defy this ban.[16][17][18] The Turkish Government has repeatedly blamed the ones who demanded more Kurdish cultural and educational freedom of terrorism or support for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).[19]
During the
Issues
Education
In Turkey, the only language of instruction in the
Kurdish is permitted as a subject in universities,[37] but in reality there are only few pioneer courses.[38]
Multiculturalism and assimilation
Due to the large number of
US Congressman Bob Filner spoke of a "cultural genocide", stressing that "a way of life known as Kurdish is disappearing at an alarming rate".[40] Mark Levene suggests that the assimilation practices were not limited to cultural assimilation, and that the events of the late 19th century continued until 1990.[1]
Desmond Fernandes and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas have claimed that Turkey instituted a genocide program (according to articles 2 (a) and 2 (e) of the UN Genocide Convention) against Kurds, which aimed at their assimilation.[41] The genocide hypothesis is not endorsed by any nation or major organization. Desmond Fernandes, a senior lecturer at De Montfort University, breaks the policy of the Turkish authorities into the following categories:[42]
- Forced assimilation program, which involved, among other things, a ban of the Kurdish language, and the forced relocation of Kurds to non-Kurdish areas of Turkey.
- The banning of any organizations opposed to category one.
- The violent repression of any Kurdish resistance.
Cultural expression
Between 1983 and 1991, it was forbidden to publicize, publish and/or broadcast in any language other than Turkish, unless that language was the first official language of a country that Turkey has diplomatic relations with.[43] Though this ban technically applied to any language, it had the largest effect on the Kurdish language, which is not the first official language of any country, despite being widely spoken in the Kurdistan region.[44]
In June 2004, Turkey's public television
Despite these reforms, use of Kurdish in the public sphere and government institutions was still restricted until several years ago. On 14 June 2007, the Interior Ministry took a decision to remove Abdullah Demirbaş from his office as elected mayor of the Sur district of Diyarbakır. They also removed elected members of the municipal council. The high court endorsed the decision of the ministry and ruled that "giving information on various municipal services such as culture, art, environment, city cleaning and health in languages other than Turkish is against the Constitution".[48]
This is despite the fact that according to the above-mentioned municipality, 72% of the people of the district use Kurdish in their daily lives. In another case, the mayor of Diyarbakır, Osman Baydemir, was subjected to a similar set of interrogations and judicial processes. His case is related to the use of the Kurdish phrase Sersala We Pîroz Be (Happy New Year) in the new year celebration cards issued by the municipality. The prosecutor wrote: "It was determined that the suspect used a Kurdish sentence in the celebration card, 'Sersala We Piroz Be' (Happy New Year). I, on behalf of the public, demand that he be punished under Article 222/1 of the Turkish Penal Code".[48]
At present, these issues have been resolved for a while; the official website of the Municipality today is trilingual: Turkish, Kurdish and English.[49]
Political representation
Party | Year banned |
---|---|
People's Labor Party (HEP)
|
1993 |
Freedom and Democracy Party (ÖZDEP) | 1993 |
Democracy Party (DEP) | 1994 |
People's Democracy Party (HADEP) | 2003 |
Democratic Society Party (DTP) | 2009 |
The
In Turkey, after 2014, political such as Kurdistan Democratic Party in Turkey (PDK-T), Kurdistan Socialist Party (PSK), Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) and the Kurdistan Communist Party (KKP) has been established. But, in 2019, the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of the Supreme Court of Appeals has filed a closure case against the KKP, PAK, PSK and PDK-T because they have the word 'Kurdistan' in their names.[53][54][55]
Internally displaced people (IDPs)
During the 1980s and 1990s, Turkey displaced a large number of its citizens from rural areas in south-eastern Anatolia by destroying thousands of villages and using forced displacement.[56] The Turkish government claimed forced displacements were intended to protect the Kurds from the Kurdish militant organization Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).[22] Although the Turkish security forces did not differentiate the armed militants from the civilian population they were supposed to be protecting. By the mid-1990s, more than 3,000 villages had been wiped from the map and according to official figures 378,335 Kurdish villagers had been displaced and left homeless.[56][57][58][59]
History
Selected incidents
Leyla Zana
In 1994
In April 2008, she was sentenced to two years in prison for allegedly "spreading terrorist propaganda" by saying in a speech, "Kurds have three leaders, namely
Akin Birdal
In 2000, the chairman of the
Diyarbakır detentions (2006)
Violent disturbances took place in several cities in the southeast in March and April 2006. Over 550 people were detained as a result of these events, including over 200 children. The
Banning of Kurdish theatrical play "Beru"
In October 2020, the governor of Istanbul banned Kurdish theatrical play "Beru" shortly before its first performance. It had been performed three years prior both in Turkey and also abroad without issue.[66]
Current status
In 2009, the state-run broadcaster,
The Turkey 2006 Progress Report underscores that, according to the Law on Political Parties, the use of languages other than Turkish is illegal in political life.[68] This was seen when Leyla Zana spoke Kurdish in her inauguration as an MP she was arrested in 1994 and charged with treason and membership in the armed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Zana and the others were sentenced to 15 years in prison.[69] Prior to this in 1992, the Kurd Institute in Istanbul was raided by police who arrested five people and confiscated books on Kurdish language, literature, and history.[70]
The European Commission concludes as of 2006 that "overall Turkey made little progress on ensuring cultural diversity and promoting respect for and protection of minorities in accordance with international standards".[35] The European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) reports that (as of April 2010): "The public use by officials of the Kurdish language lays them open to prosecution, and public defence by individuals of Kurdish or minority interests also frequently leads to prosecutions under the Criminal Code."[71] From the 1994 briefing at the International Human Rights Law Group: "the problem in Turkey is the Constitution is against the Kurds and the apartheid constitution is very similar to it."[72] The Economist also asserts that "reforms have slowed, prosecutions of writers for insulting Turkishness have continued, renewed fighting has broken out with Kurds and a new mood of nationalism has taken hold", but it is also stressed that "in the past four years the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, improved rights for Kurds".[73]
128 attacks on HDP offices, a pro-Kurdish rights party, have occurred throughout the country.[24]
See also
- Denial of Kurds by Turkey
- Persecution of Kurds
- Racism in Turkey § Against Kurds
- Anti-Kurdish sentiment
References
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The persistence of genocide or near-genocidal incidents from the 1890s through the 1990s, committed by Ottoman and successor Turkish and Iraqi states against Armenian, Kurdish, Assyrian, and Pontic Greek communities in Eastern Anatolia, is striking. ... the creation of this 'zone of genocide' in Eastern Anatolia cannot be understood in isolation, but only in light of the role played by the Great Powers in the emergence of a Western-led international system.
In the last hundred years, four Eastern Anatolian groups—Armenians, Kurds, Assyrians, and Greeks
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English summary: Private Channels to Broadcast in Kurdish in March
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In the last hundred years, four Eastern Anatolian groups—Armenians, Kurds, Assyrians, and Greeks—have fallen victim to state-sponsored attempts by the Ottoman authorities or their Turkish or Iraqi successors to eradicate them. Because of space limitations, I have concentrated here on the genocidal sequence affecting Armenians and Kurds only, though my approach would also be pertinent to the Pontic Greek and Assyrian cases. - ISBN 9789004155572.
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