Turkish Newspaper to Have Pages in Kurdish

The Turkish daily Radikal will begin publishing some of the pages its weekly magazine supplement in Kurdish. Content includes a feature on Kurdish broadcasting and excerpts from a new novel by a Kurdish author. The first edition will premiere in time for the Diyarbakir Book Fair, which I had the pleasure of attending last year.

Defense Lawyers Threaten to Boycott KCK Trial

DHA Photo from Radikal

Defense lawyers announced Monday that they will boycott the KCK trial currently ongoing in Diyarbakir unless the court allows defendants to use Kurdish when defending themselves in the courtroom. For background, click here. From Hurriyet Daily News:

Defense lawyers withdrew themselves at a Tuesday hearing from the Kurdish Communities Union, or KCK, trial and gathered to discuss whether the action should be permanent or not.

The trial has been grid-locked many times over the suspects’ demand to give their defense in Kurdish despite the court’s consistent refusal.

The 21st hearing of the case started with suspect Songül Erol Abdil, the former mayor of Tunceli province, offering his defense in Zaza, which the court refused to hear, stating the statement was in “a language believed to be Kurdish.”

Abdil corrected the court, saying that the language was Zaza and offered the defense in writing. The court refused it once more, saying, “The suspect knows Turkish.” Defense lawyers said the action was illegal and that written statements must be translated and put into the case file.

After the same thing occurred with another suspect, the defense demanded that the statements be included in the case file in both Kurdish and Turkish, that the court make a decision of lack of jurisdiction and transfer the trial to the Constitutional Court and that all the arrested suspects be present at hearings.

The court tried to end the hearing after a recess without addressing the demands, leading about 100 defense lawyers to withdraw from the case, stating they cannot do their jobs.

UPDATE I (4/27) --The Diyarbakir hearing the KCK case has ruled that the Diyarbakir Bar Association will be asked to provide new representation to clients should the lawyers who have announced to boycott the trial not attend the next hearing. The Bar Association has said it will not do this. Hurriyet Daily News quotes Emin Aktar, a lawyer in the KCK case and current chairman of the Bar Association:

“The trial is already in a gridlock; six months have passed and not one defense has gone on record.” 

"It is meaningless for us to be there,” he added.
“The court will not even add defense in Kurdish to the [case] file, let alone allow it to be read,” he said, adding that according to the law, the defenses should be translated into Turkish and added to the case files.

“There are lots of wire-tapped conversations in Kurdish used as evidence against the suspects,” Aktar said. “You [the court] translated then and [added them to the file]. Then take those out too.”

The defense lawyers have also objected to the suspects being brought to trial in groups of six, rather than altogether, even though the courtroom is large enough to handle all of them and none of the suspects caused any disturbance or insulted the court when they were brought before it, Aktar said.

“It is against the universal concept of law. The indictment accuses them of being in an organization together, of being connected to each other somehow, so they should be tried together, but you will bring some of them to the hearings and not others,” he said. “You will start to read the evidence and those not present will not be able to answer the [claims] about them. And this would be called a trial.”

Moreover, Aktar said, the defense lawyers are unaware of which suspects will be brought to court beforehand and thus cannot prepare a defense. He called for the Justice Ministry to intervene to solve the problem or for the court to “give up on its stubbornness.”

It is highly unlikely that the Justice Ministry will intervene in the trial as doing so would constitute a major concession from the government and be perceived as a political victory for the BDP.

Parliament Passes Broadcast Media Bill

Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc speaking after the law's passage. AA Photo from Hurriyet Daily News

The Turkish Parliament has passed a comprehensive law on broadcast media that gives the Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTUK) and the Turkish government broader authority to restrict media rights. Although there are positive measures in the law such as the allowance of broadcasts in languages other than Turkish (something already done in practice), the new law raises serious concerns about the government's ability to restrict programming with which it does not agree or finds morally objectionable. From Hurriyet Daily News:

The new measures also give the prime minister the authority to temporarily halt broadcasting. The law further restricts the sale of alcohol and tobacco by banning all marketing of tobacco and alcohol products.

The new regulation is also designed to protect children by banning advertisements for alcohol, tobacco products, drugs, gambling and “anything that encourages minors toward violence and abuse.”

Risqué images are banned on TV, along with content that is against the equality of sexes or objectifies women.

Movies or news bulletins that go over their allotted broadcast time will have the opportunity to cut to commercial once every 30 minutes. The broadcast of religious events, however, may never be cut for commercial.

The law also allows foreign companies to hold up to 50% of the shares in Turkish media firms, a move that has raised concerns with nationalists and those who fear the kind of large foreign investment that companies like Rupert Murdoch's New Corporation have made in past years.

RTUK, which is part of Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc's portfolio, has already been heavily criticized for restricting programming that government officials find morally and/or politically objectionable. For a litany of such cases, click here. For an earlier law the Parliament passed this year restricting the marketing and sale of alcohol, click here.

More Chaos at the KCK Trial

DHA Photo

More chaos ensued under the auspices of the KCK trial in Diyarbakir yesterday when defendants, still not granted permission to defend themselves in Kurdish, continued in their efforts to speak Kurdish in the courtroom. No doubt their microphones were silenced by judges, and their remarks recorded as "incomprehensible," as has been the case in past hearings.

Neither side is blinking on the issue: the court stubbornly refuses to allow the 151 defendants on trial to defend themselves in Kurdish despite the fact that there is precedent for such while the defendants and the BDP are using the issue to raise their own profile and ignite protests across the country. From Hurriyet Daily News:

During the afternoon session, the court said the hearing would continue without defendants in the Kurdish Communities Union, or KCK, case because they reportedly destroyed the discipline in the hall during the morning protest.

Ahead of the afternoon session, the defendants had said they would not attend the second hearing unless they were forced to do so by the gendarmerie, in which case they said they would refuse to sit in court, the pro-Kurdish Fırat news agency reported.

Once in court, the defendants’ lawyers said they did not want to make a defense without their clients, leading them to begin walking out. After the action was greeted by applause from the gallery, the court ordered everyone out and postponed the case until Feb. 1.

More than 100 defendants were standing trial once more for the case, which is investigating the alleged urban wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. The defendants include 96 people under arrest well as seven without arrest. A total of 153 people are implicated in the case, including the mayors and local politicians of several southeastern Anatolian provinces. Prominent Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir is on trial but is not under arrest.

After the court rejected the defendants’ request to speak in Kurdish during the morning session, the suspects demanded to leave the hall but were prevented from doing so by gendarmerie officers, Doğan news agency reported. The defendants, together with members of the gallery, consequently gave derisive applause for five minutes, leading the court to adjourn for a recess.

Nejdet Atalay, the mayor of Batman, spoke in Turkish in the court, saying: “This trial will take its place in history as a dishonorable example of democracy. What is being judged here is Kurds, the representatives of Kurds and the Kurdish issue.”

See past posts for more background.

In another court case, a Diyarbakir court has issued a bizarrely inhumane ruling denying compensation to a Kurdish family whose son was run over by a police vehicle. According to the decision of the court, "The sadness of the death of a [younger] person for his mother and father will not be the same as the sadness of the death of someone who came to a [greater] social status and age.” See Jenny White's comments at Kamil Pasha for more detail.

Saving Archaic Greek in Turkey

Thanks to Jenny White and 3quarksdaily.com . . .



For more on Turkey's Pontic Greek population, click here. Interestingly, since the Pontic Greeks converted to Islam, they do not have minority status in Turkey since such standing was based on religion.

Still No Blinking on Kurdish Language Defense

AFP Photo

The KCK trial continued Friday with neither side blinking on the defense in Kurdish issue. The court continued to turn off microphones as defendants attempted to speak in Kurdish, and the defendants refused to acquiesce in their demands. Some of the 151 defendants on trial argue they are better able to defend themselves in their mother tongue, though of course the issue, thanks also to the court's recalcitrance, is also being used as political fodder for Kurdish nationalists. In the end, the court decided to postpone the trial until Tuesday.

Meanwhile, protests in Diyarbakir and Istanbul got underway. In Diyarbakir, police blocked access to routes leading to the courtroom in Yenisehir, which lays just outside the city's historic walls that gave refuge to the many Kurds fleeing from the death and destruction that defined the 1990s. In Istanbul, an estimated 200 young people initiated clashes with police following a peaceful demonstration of 2,000 plus people on Istiklal Cadessi. The 200 young are no doubt among the city's thousands of impoverished Kurds that have immigrated into the city, live just off of Istiklal Caddessi, and are easily manipulated by forces who seek violent solution and seek to provoke.

According to Milliyet journalist Namik Duran, similar cases have allowed the use of Kurdish. Given the stakes here and the consequences for violence, why be so stubborn?


UPDATE I (1/18) -- Still no blinking as the trial continues. BDP leader Selahattin Demirtas announced that 1,000 families have announced their intention to join his party and that some of their children "to the mountain" (a metaphor for joining the PKK) as a result of the Kurdish language defense issue.

And the Unrest Comes . . .

From Hurriyet Daily News:

When Bayram Altun, deputy head of the shuttered pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, or DTP, began to read a defense statement in Kurdish, the head judge had his microphone turned off. “The defendant is making his defense in an unknown language,” he reportedly said.

Following this eruption, defendant Ramazan Morkoç also reportedly addressed the court in Kurdish, and then in Turkish. “You cannot insult the language of a people,” he said. The head judge moved to expel Morkoç from the courtroom, sparking protests from the other defendants who asked to be expelled from courtroom collectively.

When the judge decided to remove all the defendants from the courtroom the defense lawyers objected. Lawyer Tahir Elçi said the suspects’ request to defend themselves in Kurdish is not a political request but a legal request. Elçi said calling Kurdish an “unknown language” would have heavy political consequences.

See Oct. 21 post. This will only get bigger . . .

KCK Defendants Request Defense in Kurdish

DHA Photo from Hurriyet Daily News

The KCK trial against 151 suspect that got underway October 10 continued yesterday with Kurdish defendants asking for the right to defend themselves in Kurdish. The official national language in Turkey is Turkish, and courtroom procedures do not commonly allow defense in other languages. From Hurriyet Daily News:

The court, which has denied the defendants’ request to offer their defense in Kurdish, has also denied a demand the indictment not be read because it would take too long and prolong the period under which the accused would remain detained. The prosecution continued to read the approximately 900 page summary of the 7,578 page indictment.

Including supplement dossiers the indictment is over 130,000 pages long.

Defense lawyers stated police officers running the investigation into their clients were in the room and objected to the court, saying their presence would affect the fairness of the trial.

The Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples, or MAZLUM-DER, announced they would file a criminal complaint against the court on the grounds that it has denied the suspects the right to offer a defense in their mother tongue.

There is obviously a political note the defendants are sounding by requesting they be allowed to defend themselves in Kurdish, but once again, denying the right only stokes tensions further with little gain for the peace process.

Campaigning in Kurdish Still Illegal

Three former members of the DTP, the now defunct Kurdish political party, have received sentences of six months each for using Kurdish in their political campaigns. The court decision follows an April 11 amendment to the political parties law and the elections law, which were amended to allow campaigning in languages other than Turkish.

The politicians hale from Midyat (Mardin province) and were convicted for greetings they made to constituents during the course last year's local elections. Their sentences commuted, the Midyat politicians' convictions evidence that restrictions on use of the Kurdish language remain--or, at least that the amendments have yet to be properly implemented.

Before the recent amendments, all oral and written campaign propaganda was required to be in Turkish. Yet, in some of Turkey's electoral provinces, Turkish is not the most widely spoken language.

More Reason Why Neighborhood Pressure Matters

Bogazici University and the Open Society Institute have released a study assessing intolerant attitudes in Turkey toward ethnic and religious minorities and LGBT people. The survey, released in report form as "The Otherization and Discrimination in Turkey
(in Turkish)" ("'Biz'lik, 'Oteki'lik, ve Ayrimcilik: Kamuoyundaki Algilar ve Egilimler"), was conducted between Feb. 15 and April 25, in 18 provinces with the participation of 1,811 interviewees. Hurriyet Daily News summarizes the results:

The most striking result of the survey concerns the question on “who deserves a restriction on their rights?” The answers given by the respondents indicated that the discriminatory tendencies and the level of tolerance have changed little in the last five years.

An astonishing 53 percent of participants strongly believed that the right to freely express a different sexual orientation should be restricted. Similarly, 37 percent of the people sampled denounced the right of believing in no religion, with 59 percent standing against atheists flaunting their lack of religion. Moreover, 28 percent denounced the right of non-Muslims to be open about their religious identity.

The results showed that 72 percent of the sample supported the idea that “those who have a different sexual orientation, like homosexuality, should be open about their sexual identities.”

According to the 2005 results of the survey, 58 percent said non-heterosexuals should not be equally free. The percentage of those who say the rights of those who have a different native language other than Turkish should be restricted is 19 percent, the same figure as the 2005 survey.

Those who say that all ethnicities, religions and sects should be secured by the Constitution make up 74 percent.

Some 36 percent of the interviewees said their primary identity was “being a citizen of Turkey,” whereas a 29 percent thought “having a Turkish national identity” was most important.

Meanwhile, 66 percent said they have no other ethnic culture and they are rooted completely in Turkish culture, while 20 percent said their ethnic culture and language were secondary to Turkish language and culture. Some 8 percent said their language or culture came before Turkish culture while 2 percent said they had absolutely no connection to Turkish culture and language.

59% of respondents in the survey said they did not feel any sort of neighborhood pressure. And, the rest?

Such surveys should boost concern about the arguments of "strong democrats," those who continue to stress democracy with little reference to rights protections and difference. See my March 26 post on the need for Turkey, and the AKP as the government in power leading up constitutional efforts, to come to a sophisticated of rights-based democracy. Until the "democrats" start talking about protecting everyone's rights, promoting difference and diversity in Turkish society, and adopt an open, articulate discourse that encompasses all of Turkish society, many Turks are likely to fear rule by the majority -- and, if the respondents in this poll hasd their say, for good reason. Leadership requires taking risks and promoting new understandings, most especially in conservative societies where difference is seen as something Other. The AKP has taken some positive steps in this direction, but how genuine, far-reaching, and reflective of an overall attitude appreciative of diversity is still very much in doubt. When combined with a general societal ambivalence toward liberalism and a lack of tolerance, many Turks' fear of rule by majority should be taken seriusly. Turkey might not end up like Iran, but it could certainly end up a more closed, oppresive society should majoritarian democracy continue to take a stronger place without attention to rights. For more on neighborhood pressure, see also Feb. 10 post.

The Man Who Named His Daughter "Helin Kürdistan"

From Jenny White at Kamil Pasha:

The Kurdish Opening, again: The sound of one door, slamming.

A father who faced jail time for registering his newborn daughter’s name as “Helin Kürdistan” was acquitted on the charge by a Diyarbakır court (not enough evidence), only to be sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison for attending a demonstration.

Prosecutors had charged Şanlıurfa resident Ahmet Atış with “making propaganda for a terrorist organization” by naming his daughter Helin Kürdistan, but due to lack of evidence for the crime, the case was dismissed and the father acquitted. (Click here for my post on previous name games.)

BUT prosecutors managed to find what appears to be his face on a single photo of demonstrators at a demonstration held on April 4 on the occasion of the birthday of Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdish separatist group PKK.

For this, prosecutors charged Atış with “committing a crime in the name of a terrorist organization,” “behaving against the law for the purposes of gathering and demonstration marches” and “making propaganda for a terrorist organization”, for which they requested a sentence of 20 years.

Atış’s lawyer argued that there was no evidence of his client shouting illegal slogans or throwing stones at the police. (click here for the article)

The court sentenced Atış to eight years and four months in prison.

In another post, White documents attempts made by some Kurdish parents to give their children names using Kurdish letters that do not exist in Turkish -- letters that have beforebeen argued and thought illegal to use. Following a case in which a court acquitted Yasin Yetisgen for using the Kurdish letters 'w,' 'q' and 'x,' rejecting a prosecutor's argument that use of the letters is in violation of Article 222 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), it is unclear just what the law says on the letters and in the different contexts in which they are used.

Another Portrait of Abdullah Demirbas

Abdullah Demirbas, Mayor of Diyarbakir's Surici municipality

Writing for the Middle East Information Project's Middle East Report Online, Oxford University Professor Kerem Oktem produced an insightful profile last fall of Abdullah Demirbas, the BDP mayor of Diyarbakir's Surici municipality. From Oktem:

Abdullah Demirbaş is the mayor of Suriçi, a district of Diyarbakır. With more than 600,000 inhabitants, many of them war refugees, Diyarbakır is the political and cultural center of Turkey’s troubled southeastern provinces. The district comprises the entirety of the old walled city; hence its name in Turkish, Suriçi, which translates literally as intra muros.

Suriçi is the historical heart of Diyarbakır and the repository of its multicultural past, with once substantial Armenian, Syrian Orthodox and Jewish communities whose presence, if largely diminished, lasted well into the 1980s. Yet it is also a particularly disadvantaged part of the city, as it was a gateway for tens of thousands of refugees who lost their homes and livelihoods during the hottest years of armed conflict between the Turkish army and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the 1990s

Today, the middle classes have all but left the old town. The vast majority of the district’s residents are recent immigrants from the countryside with few or no skills for the urban job market. Elderly women in particular speak only Kurdish, and the dirt-strewn alleyways resound with the rural dialects of Kurmanchi and Zazaki.

. . . .

The space for Kurdish politics in Turkey has always been constricted by an unsympathetic state and zealous judges who seek to ban every party that explicitly refers to Kurdish identity. The space is also contested by the more maximalist PKK and its supporters and by radical Islamist groupings such as the Kurdish Hizbullah. DTP mayors are often torn between the realities of urban politics in Turkey and the nationalist demands of the PKK. Myriads of court cases are brought against them, often by the Ministry of Interior, and the central state skimps on public services in their districts. Yet many also succeed in carving out spaces of resistance, where they establish and make visible a distinctly Kurdish and left-wing political discourse. Such is the case with the newly opened Mehmet Uzun Library, named after the leading Kurdish contemporary novelist. Abdullah Demirbaş and Osman Baydemir, mayor of metropolitan Diyarbakır, are two of the most prominent of these officials.

Demirbaş was also the first mayor to introduce Kurdish as a formal working language of the municipal administration, honoring the inhabitants who speak little or no Turkish. He had tourist brochures published in Kurdish, as well as in Armenian, Syriac and Arabic. Because of these bold steps, he was deposed after an Interior Ministry inquiry in 2008. He was, however, reelected in April 2009. The cases against him have not abated and once again, he faces removal from office, and even imprisonment for his project of “multilingual municipality services” and support for the advancement of Kurdish culture.

For the full piece, click here. For an earlier profile of Demirbas by Meline Toumani that ran in the New York Times in February 2008, click here.

Meeting the Turkey Skeptics

PHOTO from Today's Zaman

Prime Minister's Erdogan's recent meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have brought the Turkish government into meetings with Europe's top two leaders opposed to Turkish membership in the European Union.

In France last week, Erdogan participated in festivities closing Paris' 9-month Turkish Season in Paris. Sarkozy did not attend the festivities, widely interpreted here as yet another snub. Yet, after a meeting with Sarkozy, the French president accepted Erdogan's invitation to come and see Turkey's progress for himself. Sarkozy has not visited Turkey since he was a small child, and Erdogan highlighted this point before embarking to Paris. However, unlike his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, Sarkozy remains opposed to Turkish membership, and is unlikely to be turned anytime in the near future. Erdogan also said he hoped to boost trade between Turkey and France from 10 to 15 billion euros. The two leaders differed on sanctions for Iran, Erdogan making headlines when he referred to Ahmadinejad as his "dear friend." Adding a historical perspective to Franco-Turkish relations, Today's Zaman columnist Ibrahim Kalin takes a look at the ties between the two countries.

The Preceding Week

Repeating her "offer" of "privileged partnership," Merkel visited Turkey in an official state visit encompassing a variety of issues, most focused on of which was the issue of Turkish-language schools in Germany. In an interview with Die Zeit before the visit, Erdogan proposed that Turkish-language high schools be established for Germany's Turkish minority. The issue is, of course, highly-sensitive in Germany, and was interpreted by some in the Turkish press as a call for Turkish-language education as an alternative to German. In making his argument, Erdogan pointed to German high schools in Turkey's largest cities, which oftentimes only the richest and most elite students attend. Merkel responded that there is nothing to prohibit the establishment of private schools teaching Turkish in Germany. Declaring education in one's mother tongue to be a bsic right, Erdogan made no reference to minorities whoare native in his country (and not immigrants) who do no receive public education in their own tongue. This point was not missed by some figures in the German press. Issues related to dual citizenship for German/Turkish citizens were also discussed, as well as visa-free travel for Turkish citizens. There are approximately 3 million people of Turkish descent living in Germany, and approximately 500,000 of them are German citizens. For more on the debate, see this piece in Der Spiegel, which also documents German press coverage, as well as this interview with former Chancellor Gerhard Schroder in Bildt. Merkel repeated her previous calls for privileged partnership, but reiterated that talks were open-ended. In an interview with Milliyet, Merkel said 27-28 chapters of the acquis could be opened. For news coverage of the visit, see coverage from Today's Zaman and this from the BBC. Also of interest is Der Spiegel's interview with Turkish-German intellectual Necla Kelek.

Broadcasting and Minority Rights

From Hürriyet:

State Minister Mehmet Aydın says a precedent has not been set with the launch of TRT 6 and broadcasting in other languages is not about to commence. He says individual assessments need to be made on the need for TV channels in other languages before making decisions.

Turkish state television’s new Kurdish channel will not be followed by similar channels in Laz, Georgian or other languages spoken in Turkey, or by a channel broadcasting in Zazaki, a Kurdish dialect, said the state minister responsible for Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, or TRT, Mehmet Aydın yesterday.

"It is too early to make a comment," Aydın told reporters at Parliament, avoiding any comment that could be perceived as a green light to other state TV channels in non-Turkish languages. "We must weigh the necessities carefully. Why was TRT-6 born? Is there need for television in other languages or dialects? These must be carefully thought out," Aydın said.

Turkish citizens speaking Laz, Zaza, and Georgian requested Parliament’s human rights committees to launch channels in their languages after TRT-6, the first Kurdish state channel, was launched at the start of the year.

"TRT-6 airs a dozen types of programs 24 hours a day. We need to consider how suitable the content and quality of these programs are in meeting the demands of other languages and dialects," Aydın said.

The minister said the Laz, Georgian, and Zazaki people would not insist on state channels in their own languages. "Why should they ask for this? There are people in Southeast and East Turkey who cannot speak Turkish. Kurdish is used in all corners of the country. Are these languages used as much?" the state minister asked.

Aydın said the request submitted to Parliament’s human rights committee was the exercise of a democratic right by these groups.

Similarly, Circassian groups requested broadcast time earlier last month, the heads of the Caucasian Associations Federation (an umbrella organization for 56 Circassian groups) sitting down with President Gül at Çankaya to discuss broadcast time on TRT-6 or another channel. The demands for Zazacı to be included are also important in that the Zaza are a minority Kurdish group; at the moment, TRT-6 is broadcasting primarily in Kurmancı, the dialect of and group to which the majority of Turkey's Kurds belong. For more on Zaza, see Wladimir van Wilgenburg's analysis of rising Zaza nationalism in the EDM.

Interesting is that Aydın acknowledged the petition as a democratic right exercised by these minority groups. Turkey has been reluctant to vest minority groups with rights, though the growing number of minority rights' claims from Turkey's multiple ethnic groups is likely to raise the ire of old-fashioned, state-centric Kemalists who have long decried that such rights will lead to ethnic fragmentation, a bugaboo which still very much influences Turkish politics. Such fear is manifest in a statement made last January by the Atatürkist Thought Association (ADD) , a hardcore nationalist organization. From the statement:

Learning Turkish, speaking Turkish and being educated in Turkish is a citizen’s responsibility. With the Kurdish broadcast channel, the TRT will play into the hands of those domestic and international powers who want to divide and ruin our country. We invite our people and administrators to see that Kurdish broadcasting, Kurdish language and literature departments, the Kurdish Institute, an autonomous region, a federation and an independent Kurdish state are all phases of a game. We strongly decry attempts by the [Higher Education Board] YÖK to establish Kurdish language and literature departments even as there are serious higher education problems in our country. The ADD will forever remain bound to the secular, democratic, social republic that the great leader Atatürk established, the unitary structure of the state and its indivisible entirety, and we will continue the ideological battle for this purpose. How happy is he who calls himself a Turk.

The ADD and the Turkey Public Employers’ Trade Unions Confederation (KAMU-SEN) have both filed lawsuits to fight TRT-6 in the Turkish courts, though victory is unlikely and the prevailing political sentiment against them (see Jan. 7 post).

Toward Multiculturalism? : Circassians Make Demands for Broadcast Time, Language Departments

From TDZ:

Last year Parliament passed a bill that allowed television broadcasting in languages other than Turkish -- specifically aimed at introducing Kurdish, Arabic and Farsi programming -- and this month TRT 6 began Kurdish programming to appeal to the nation’s 20 million Kurdish citizens. Work is also under way to create Kurdish literature and language departments in Turkish universities. Circassian Turks, who account for an estimated 6 million, are now asking for similar steps to be taken to recognize their culture.

On Monday, President Abdullah Gül received the heads of the Caucasian Associations Federation (an umbrella organization for 56 Circassian groups) at the Çankaya presidential palace. The representatives, Turkish citizens of Abkhazian background, told the president that Turkey had implemented a de facto embargo on Abkhazia and that they had started a signature campaign to reverse it.

The group presented a file to the president containing their requests, and Gül said he would look into and consider their requests. Caucasian Associations Federation Secretary-General Cumhur Bal told Today’s Zaman that the meeting had “passed positively,” adding: “The esteemed president has been informed on the topics. We didn’t see any hint of a negative reaction.”

According to Bal, Gül had responded positively in particular to their requests for Circassian language and literature departments in Ýstanbul and Ankara universities and broadcasts on TRT, saying, “Why not?” In his interview with Today’s Zaman, Bal said the TRT’s current once-a-week, half-hour broadcast in Circassian languages on Thursdays was insufficient. “The programs broadcast soccer match results from a week ago. We know Turkish, we already know about this. Our request is for programming containing news,” Bal explained.

Recalling that the newly started TRT 6 channel was to broadcast in many languages, Bal was quick to point out that his federation was not trying to constitute competition for Kurdish in TV broadcasting. “We see the start of Kurdish broadcasting positively. Broadcasting in Circassian can be on TRT 6 or on other channels. It’s not competition [with Kurdish broadcasting] -- it’s something that we also deserve,” he said, adding that broadcasting in native languages was a way to perpetuate culture and tradition.

For full article, click here.

Circassians comprise approximately 6 million of Turkey's estimated 72 million people. Hürriyet quotes MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli, " "Everybody can speak in their mother tongue in their private lives. There is nobody preventing this, we respect this." The issue of using languages other than Turkish in the public sphere is widely opposed by those concerned that it will lead to the deterioration of Turkish nationality, which for many people underpins the basis of Turkish citizenship. Demands for cultural recognition from Circassians and other ethnic groups in addition to the country's Kurdish minority, which constitues 20 percent of its population, will prompt Turkey to give more thought to its accomodation of minorities.

Beyond Bananas: Hopes for the Kurdish Minority in 2009

PHOTO from the New York Times

President Gül received praise from those serious about resolving the Kurdish problem when he invited Hakarri DTP deputy Hamit Geylati to Çankaya Palace this November. With Geylati, Gül discussed the status of the Kurdish minority with the president, including cultural and political rights. What made the meeting so remarkable was its contrast to the politics of Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose staunchly nationalist remarks in Hakarri in late October helped ignite protests against the prime minister throughout the region. Sparked by reports from imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan's attorney that the exiled head of the infamous separatist group is being mistreated, thousands of Kurds rallied against the prime minister's appearance, prompting stores to be shut down in protest and demonstrators to clash with police. The Prime Minister's failure to fully recognize and promote the cultural and political rights of Turkey's Kurdish minority has been a sore spot for Kurds for some time, and was quite palpable when I visited Diyarbakır last May.

The political differences between Gül and Erdoğan evince the incoherency of the government's policy toward the Kurds, especially at a time of considerable rapprochement, even cooperation, between AKP and the Turkish Armed Services. Like other contrasts between the policy positions the president and prime minister have taken, Gül is more willing to make fundamental reforms, escape from the vicious cycles of past politics, and move Turkey forward. Erdoğan, on the other hand, is playing a role more molded to the traditional statist/nationalist politician. Intellectuals like Mehmet Altan, Ece Temelkuran, Altan Tan, and Hasan Cemal, among scores of others, have expressed scorn at AKP policy as of late (see TDZ, Dec. 2; Yavuz Baydar, Dec. 1). Cemal, who writes for Milliyet, went so far as to compare Erdoğan's increasingly cozy relationship with the Turkish Armed Services (TSK) to Tansu Çiller, who served as prime minister as the state's war against the Kurds escalated in the early 1990s. Indeed, the prime minister's Kurdish policy is so bemoaned by Turkish liberals as to catch the attention of the not-so-long-ago enamored international press: both the New York Times and the Spiegel recently ran stories on the prime minister's disconcertingly nationalist proclivities.

AKP won re-election in 2007 with high hopes that the party would transform politics in the Kurdish southeast, thereby easing tensions between the Turkish state and the PKK terrorist group. The PKK assumed a dominant position in the 1980s following the reactionary-led military coup of 1980 that devastated its politics. Throughout the 1980s and the bitter war the organization fought with the Turkish state in the early 1990s, the PKK declared a right to self-determination for all Kurdish people to be secured by its winning full territorial and political independence from Turkey and forming its own state. Since then, the "Organization," as it is referred to by many Kurds, has expressed its willingness to negotiate a settlement with Turkey that provides the country's Kurdish minority with cultural and political rights to self-determination within the confines of the Turkish state. Since Öcalan's capture in 1999, the PKK is far from monolithic in its structure, ideology, and practical politics, and neither is the DTP (Demokratik Toplum Partisi), often recognized as its political wing. One might think of the DTP's relation to the PKK as similar to that between the IRA and Sinn Feín in Northern Ireland or ETA and Harri Batasuna in the Basque country, although its association is probably even more obfuscate and control weaker. The PKK is largely a destructive force in Kurdish politics, preventing more moderate, compromising voices from rising to power, and conflict between hardliners in the Turkish state and those in the Kurdish minority has the effect of further empowering the hardliners while undermining compromise. This is true in terms of military relations between the PKK and the Turkish military just as it is between nationalist politicians in Ankara and the more radical politicians in the DTP. (For further discussion of this dynamic, see my post on the DTP party conference from last August, as well as my assessment of Kurdish politicians' reactions to the Ergenekon investigation.)

In Hakarri, Erdoğan declared that those who question the idea of "one nation, one flag, one state" should leave Turkey. This is exactly the kind of thinking that will empower hardliners in both the PKK and the DTP, and in an environment in which over 90 percent of Turks would rather live in Turkey than an independent Kurdistan, is likely to disenchant a significant number of Kurds before hopeful that their cultural and social rights might be accommodated within the Turkish state structure. Politicians as far back as the 1960s have recognized that the Kurdish problem affects all of Turkey, and that the only peaceful and just solution is an arrangement in which the Kurdish minority is assured cultural and political rights, and perhaps even given some measure of limited autonomy from Ankara. Just as there are similarities between Turkish and Kurdish citizens, there are also differences, and there is certainly room to negotiate smart, lasting solutions premised on multiple sites of sovereignty, identity, and participation, all secured by rights. Indeed, it is the denial of even the most basic political rights that pits Kurds against Turks (for example, see Lale Sarııbrahımoğlu on freedom of expression and the Kurdish issue), not to mention invasive practices of torture and police abuse that inflict severe psychological damage and ill will. And, while there are plenty of reformers -- Turks and Kurds alike -- who are determined to change the status quo, rhetoric like that from the prime minister in Hakarri is sure effrontery to the spirit of progress first engendered by the more conciliatory politics of AKP, especially when Gül exerted a leadership role within the party.

Disillusionment with AKP's commitment to cultural and political rights for Kurds was already greatly waning at this time last year following the PKK's renewed attacks in fall 2007. My description of the situation I wrote about last February for the most part holds true. Kurds continue to be prosecuted under restrictive speech codes as torture and detention of suspected PKK-members is on the increase. Further, AKP is less likely to offer its support to local efforts that promote Kurdish culture or education. Although the EU still has a very important role to play in implementing law that legalizes rights for Kurds to hold cultural gatherings and conduct Kurdish language education, AKP support for such undertakings remains half-hearted. Further, even though Turkey's recent efforts to make way for a 24-hour Kurdish broadcast channel are hugely laudable, 2008 brought with it more problems as well, including the recent conviction of Leyla Zana, an increase in "open air" torture and detention, and the continued prosecution of Kurds under draconian restrictions of freedom of expression. For the most recent examples, see the cases against journalist Veysi Sarısözen, who is alleged to have praised the PKK in his writings, and Kurdish politician Mahmut Alınak, who was recently sentenced to four months and five days in prison for organizing people to take part in civil disobedience. Harrassment of Kurdish politics is evidenced by the cases brought against Diyarbakir mayor Osman Baydemir and the city's DTP leader, Nejdet Atalay, for referring to members of the PKK as "guerillas" versus "terrorists." Violent protests during Newroz celebrations this March in Van and Hakarri further belie any claim that much progress has been made to stem state repression of Kurdish dissent and open the southeast up politically.

Instead of talking about political and cultural rights, Prime Minister Erdoğan is more keen to talk about economics. Turkish intellectual Ece Temelkuran has compared AKP policy in the southeast to giving out Islamist bananas, an attempt to perhaps bridge the development gap, but an approach that ultimately fails to address the demands of Kurds for the state to recognize their unique identity and standing in Turkish society. (For a similar argument, see Kerem Oktem, who assesses these Islamist bananas as tantamount to co-optation.) While some Turks far too often decry such a demand as separatism, other Turks and most Kurds see recognition as the foundation of basic human rights -- the right to address each other in their own language without state interference, to educate their children in the language of their grandmothers, to celebrate their culture in free assembly, and to enter politics as individuals with identities that might be both Kurdish and Turkish, and therefore, more difficult to negotiate than that of the average Turk. However, what Temelkuran identifies as "Islamist banana politics" and the politics that analyzes in his consideration of AKP policy, fall far short of meeting this demand. Nonetheless, AKP holds economic development and the creation of a state television channel as sufficient compromises, a secret battle plan to combat a war on terrorism that fails to extirpate the root of the problem. While AKP's realization of the need to develop the southeast is light years ahead of the thought asserted by other political parties, it still simply not enough, and as a result, likely to fail. Nonetheless, even when AKP's economic policies for the Kurdish southeast are highly dubious, they have often tacitly endorsed by some in the Western media (see the New York Times' treatment of GAP this March).



Kurdish Turks/Turkish Kurds?? protest in Ankara. PHOTO FROM REUTERS

Islamist banana politics gained further legitimacy this fall when the government and military began working more closely together. As indicated by the recent resignations of former AKP deputy chair Dengir Mir Mehmet Firat, an ethnic Kurd, banana politics are likely to become even more entrenched as the government further eschews cultural and political rights . As Lale Sarııbrahımoğlu elucidates, his replacement, Abdulkadir Aksu, also Kurdish, "has been widely viewed as a reflection of the AK Party's shift in policy from one that supports the greater engagement of Kurds in the political process to one that has further narrowed the room for maneuver for Kurds to express their political opinions." Further signalling this new era of cooperation and consensus on the Kurdish issue, the military top brass, typically quite reticent on political approaches to the Kurdish problem, has publicly agreed with the prime minister that the solution is economic. While this is undeniably in-part the case -- and, despite the TSK's discussion of non-military solutions being a positive step -- the danger is that too exclusive a focus on the economy is incapable of leading to a comprehensive political solution, thereby risking failed policy, and likely more violence as a function of resulting frustration. Not only are banana politics not fair to Kurds, but they are not pragmatic.

Insidious defenses of banana politics cite AKP's decisions as made in agreement with Kurdish public opinion (though the polls are dubitable, and show only the slightest of majorities placing economic over cultural/political concerns), in addition to an exaggerated disconnect between Kurdish intellectuals/political leaders and the overwhelming majority of Kurds, who are overwhelmingly very poor people. The myopia of the banana defenders is on full display in arguing the last point since any amelioration of the living conditions of Kurds will likely raise consciousness of cultural repression, not diminish it. For examples of banana defenses, see Abdulhamit Bilici and Mümtaz'er Türköne. In one defense, Türköne argues,

"For [DTP], the victory of the AK Party, especially in Diyarbakır, will be a
nightmare. If the AK Party wins in southeastern Anatolia, the Kurdish question
will enter a new phase. The PKK and the DTP will not remain the sole powers
designing pro-Kurdish politics. Pro-Kurdish politics will be ‘pluralized.’"

Plural societies value multiculturalism, and rarely does one see pluralism used as a verb; what Türköne means is more closely approximated by the term assimilation, and prosperous, multi-ethnic societies are just as, if not more, likely to resist assimilation and make self-determination claims (see Quebec, the Basque Country and Cataluña, Northern Ireland, Belgium, etc.).

Further undermining its credentials in the southeast, AKP has failed to take a strong stand against DTP's potential closure, leaving many Kurds, even those not necessarily fond of DTP, feeling betrayed. DTP is in the process of preparing itself for potential closure, including forming a backup party, though it is possible that the Constitutional Court will not reach a decision until after March's local elections (see Bianet, Dec. 18).

In an interview this Novemeber in the Spiegel, DTP co-chair Ahmet Türk, a moderate within the party who has denounced PKK violence, characterized the Turkish state's treatment of the Kurdish minority as cultural and social genocide. Although such claims are difficult to adjudicate, they do reveal just how oppressed many Kurds feel by a state that has historically been reluctant to even recognize the fact of a distinct Kurdish identity. It is important to remember that Turkey has gone leaps and bounds from where it was in the 1980s in its treatment of the Kurds (and, this is not to discount the work of leftist before the coup), but it has further to go still. (See Nicole Pope's column from yesterday wherein she recounts remembering a time when "Kurd" was not kosher in policy discussions).

And, while Erdoğan's remarks in Hakarri give cause for concern, President Gül's actions give reason to be hopeful. There are indeed other reasons for hope. In the course of ongoing preparations for local elections, political parties are undertaking intense efforts to win Kurdish votes in the southeast. AKP's recent release of TRT-6 -- and Erdoğan's interview introducing the channel, in which he wishes for its success in Kurdish -- is just one example of the progressive reform that might come about if such competition for Kurdish votes continues. AKP and CHP both have welcomed the recent opening of departments of Kurdish literature at Dicle and İstanbul University, a bill introduced in November by DTP deputy Siirt Osman Özçelik. For its part, CHP has also attempted to court Kurdish voters, though the party, as AKP-leaning Today's Zaman concludes, is less likely to win large percentages. Even so, that the party is making a serious effort despite knowing it is unlikely to have much success is even more indicative of the importance of the Kurds' burgeoning vote in the country.

Also, as the Christian Science Monitor's Yigal Schleifer reports, worthy of note is that the competition for votes is also affecting DTP's politics. In the course of campaigning, DTP has boosted efforts to appeal to religious Kurds and shed its Marxist secular image. DTP's transformation is just as groundbreaking as that of CHP or AKP, if not more so, as a vote-savvy, politically conscious DTP courting religious Kurds is less likely to be beholden to the PKK, and from a stronger position of power, more capable of participating in a political solution to end PKK violence. As Schleifer notes, Kurds are among the most religious of Turkish citizens, and as DTP moves to win Kurdish AKP-voters, AKP will feel even more pressure to win religious Kurds who also demand cultural and political rights. According to Taraf, DTP deputy Hasip Kaplan has already proposed a law allowing that the Kurdish letters Q, W, and X in government correspondence, and attention is focused on the continued prohibition of the use of Kurdish by public officials, including parliamentarians.

Kurdish Broadcasting and TRT-6: Time Will Tell

PHOTO BY Yigal Schleifer

From Yigal Schleifer at his blog, Istanbul Calling:

In what could be a very significant move, Turkey's state broadcaster (TRT) is set to launch a Kurdish-language channel in the beginning of 2009. Full details about the channel, called TRT 6, are still sketchy, but it promises to provide much more than the pitiful current level of public broadcasting in Kurdish, limited to a few hours a week and hardly watched.

Dedicating a channel to Kurdish programming is an important recognition of a language that's the mother tongue of millions of Turks. But TRT 6's real aim, it appears, is to undercut the appeal of Roj TV, a Kurdish satellite network broadcasting out of Europe, that is extremely popular among Turkey's Kurds. Ankara has accused Roj of being a mouthpiece for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and of spreading anti-Turkish propaganda. But the channel, which shows a mix of news, music videos and other programs, has been able to become as popular as it is because there has been no other alternative out there.

Taking on Roj might be a tough job, though. The network's appeal, besides that it broadcasts in Kurdish, is based on its independence and the fact that it shows things no Turkish channel would dare do, such as footage from the PKK's camps in Northern Iraq or performances by Kurdish musicians who are banned in Turkey because of their political views. The channel also acts as a kind of Kurdish grapevine. I was in the predominantly-Kurdish southeast of Turkey a few years ago working on a piece about Roj TV and met with a family whose son was a PKK guerilla who had recently been killed in a clash with Turkish forces. When I asked them how they found out about their son's death, both parents told me that it was through Roj. I heard similar stories from other people.

If TRT 6 puts on some innovative programming, or at least programs that aren't produced with a very heavy state hand, then it and Roj TV might be in for an interesting ratings battle. We'll be watching.

As expected, the response to TRT-6 is mixed among both Turkish and Kurdish officials. TDZ quotes former Diyarbakır Bar Association President Sezgin Tanrıkulu: "This is an important and serious step. This shows that the state has moved on from the stage of denying the existence of Kurds to acknowledging Kurds. We can discuss the content of the channel, but regardless of all of that, it is important that a public broadcaster is allocating one channel for this." Meanwhile, Kurdish hardliners like party co-chair Emine Ayna and prominent DTP deputy Selhattin Demirtaş dismiss the channel as mere AKP politicking. One common attitude is reflected by Batman mayor and DTP party member Nejdet Atalay: “For years, Kurdish was recorded in police records as an ‘unidentified language.’ They used to tell us that Kurds do not exist. Now they are going to tell us that there is no such thing as Kurds in Kurdish.” DTP rhetoric is driven in part by upcoming local elections for which AKP and DTP are vying for votes, but should not be dismissed as mere campaigning. A more cogent call for skepticism was made by former DTP deputy Mahmut Alınak. From Bianet:

Reminding that he was punished for playing Kurdish music during an election period by the Kars Criminal Court of First Instance with three more people, Alınak said, “The state made this move because it could no more go on with the century long ban. Since it could not silence technology the Kurdish TV channels that already exits, it will try to reduce their influence.“The state made this move because it could no more go on with the century long ban. Since it could not silence technology the Kurdish TV channels that already exits, it will try to reduce their influence."

In Ankara, political parties are similarly divided. Predictably, CHP leadership is discontented while AKP and government officials hail the channel as a major step forward in the state's relationship with its Kurdish minority -- roughly 20 percent of its population.

After the 1980 coup, Kurdish language was largely prohibited in public places. Although there still exist numerous restrictions on Kurdish cultural life, a 24-hour Kurdish broadcast channel is a welcome development, especially if the channel is well-implemented and proves itself more than an election ploy. However, the channel has no firm legal basis, and appears more than a bit of a contradiction when restrictions are still in place that prevent the use of Kurdish letters in public documents. Pressing the government for further reform, DTP deputy Hasip Kaplan has proposed a law to include letters x, w, q in the alphabet and the removal of all the obstacles before the Kurdish language. And, to remove any question about the legality of using Kurdish in public -- which, given TRT-6, is indeed bizarre -- Gültan Kışanak, DTP’s Diyarbakır deputy, prepared a bill that will enable the Kurdish language to be used in the public space (see Bianet, Jan. 2).

An optimistic outlook of TRT-6 is made in a TDZ op/ed by Mutlu Çiviroğlu:

TRT's Kurdish broadcasts actually started in 2004, after the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) approved legislative amendments that allowed TRT and private channels to broadcast in local languages and dialects. Following these amendments, on June 7, 2004, TRT 3 started broadcasting in both the Kurmanji and Zazaki Kurdish dialects, as well as in Arabic, Circassian and Bosnian, each for 30 minutes a day. Due to legal obligations, all broadcasts had to have Turkish subtitles and the content and timing of the programs did not attract many viewers.

However, with the recent initiative of the Kurdish TV station, TRT officials seem to have taken a different view. In an interview with the Zaman daily, TRT General Director İbrahim Şahin said they would primarily use Kurmanji, which is spoken by 90 percent of the people in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish regions, and that they would later include the Zazaki and Sorani dialects, as well. "Our intention is not to scare anybody. We sincerely want to meet the need for a TV channel for people who couldn't learn Turkish. This channel will be a family channel, like TRT 1, that will have series, entertainment programs and news programs. It will have everything that a family channel offers. As long as our national unity, integrity, anthem and flag are not disrespected, we will produce the same programs for the Kurdish channel that we do on other TRT channels. In the Constitution, Article 2954 clearly indicates our principles and mission and, on the condition of remaining within these boundaries, our colleagues will be able to freely say and produce whatever they want," Şahin explained.

In fact, Dec. 25, 2008, represented a remarkable day for the democratization of Turkey and the brotherhood of Kurds and Turks because the opening of the Kurdish TV station has a historical significance and meaning for Turkey. It's the common hope and desire of many people that this channel will be a democratic and objective project that will respect the cultural and linguistic rights of the Kurdish people. It is also hoped that TRT 6 will act as a bridge for sharing the language, literature, culture and traditions of Kurds and strengthening mutual love and respect between Kurds and Turks. Instead of making premature judgments and labeling the channel as a mouthpiece of the government, perhaps it would be wiser to give it some time and contribute to it in different ways.

Just how those cultural and linguistic rights will be negotiated with Article 2954 and other Turkish law will, of course, be the real kicker. As Schleifer writes, we will be watching. For a great piece on Roj-TV, see Schleifer from 2006. For a coverage from the Economist, click here.

EU Links Freedom of Expression to the Kurdish Issue

From LALE SARIIBRAHIMOĞLU in TDZ:

Turkey's persistent and indiscriminate approach to cracking down on the expression of opinions that incite violence and the expression of non-violent opinions has finally prompted the European Union, of which Turkey aspires to become a member, to write for the first time in its yearly progress report specifically about the problem of freedom of expression in relation to the Kurdish issue.

"This year, the EU has used more specific language with freedom of expression over the Kurdish issue, as we have witnessed permanent harassment of Kurdish mayors in the southeastern region, despite the fact that they have been expressing non-violent opinions," said a Western diplomat.
The diplomat further stressed that they saw the need to encourage the people of the Kurdish-dominated Southeast to engage in the political process, through the free expression of their opinions to reduce the violence instigated by outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists.

In previous years, progress reports issued by the EU have expressed concerns with problems in freedom of expression as a whole in Turkey, but the 2008 Progress Report, which was issued on Nov. 5, for the first time, used "Kurdish issue" in relation to serious flaws in the area of freedom of expression.

For full article, click here.

The Letter "W"

Bad news on the Kurdish front . . .

Also, from BIA-Net (article by Erhan Üstündağ):

A German citizen child whose father is a political refugee was not allowed to enter Turkey because of the W letter in his name and sent back to Germany.

Submitting a motion of question, on June 15, the Democratic Society Party deputy Akın Birdal asked the authorities to explain the reason behind this action.

Although the seven year old Welat was sent back to Germany by plane, his mother Yadigar D. and her two other kids were allowed to enter the country.

There is no “forbidden name”

According to the Turkish Census Law that was in effect until 2006, the newborn could not be given names that were “not appropriate to our national culture, our code of ethics and our traditions or injures the public opinion.”

At that period, the Turkish Language Society (TDK) had prepared a “list of forbidden names”. There were 23 names on the list. Demonstrations were organized to protest this arrangement which was essentially targeted the Kurdish names.

In 2003, a new regulation, which was set up for the adaptation to the European Union, restricted the name banning only to those cases that offended the public morality, but added to this a requirement of “suitability to the Turkish alphabet.” Thus, the letters Q,W, X were banned and names that included these letters.

There is no restriction regarding the names in the Census Law and the related regulation that went into effect in 2006.

On the other hand, the Chief of Staff asked its institutions not to use the letters Q, W and X.

The Implementation is against the Convention on the Rights of the Child
The 8th article of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (ÇHS) states the following:

“1. States Parties undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference.

2. Where a child is illegally deprived of some or all of the elements of his or her identity, States Parties shall provide appropriate assistance and protection, with a view to re-establishing speedily his or her identity.”

The 30th article of the Convention about which Turkey expressed a reservation is:

“In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities or persons of indigenous origin exist, a child belonging to such a minority or who is indigenous shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of his or her group, to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practice his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language.”

One of the changes made during the reform revolution that followed Helsinki was law that allowed for the right of parents to give their children Kurdish names. The EU was key to the implementation of this law and Ankara had to be firm in ensuring that local authorities followed the new law. However, as the BIA-Net article notes, the law was not so comprehensive as to assure the right to use names with "Q," "W," and "X."

"Mountain Language" Indeed

From Sunday's Zaman:

It was 1985, when playwright and Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, along with the late Arthur Miller, visited Turkey on behalf of International PEN to investigate the situation of writers in Turkey, a visit that inspired him to write his play "Mountain Language" three years later.

"One of the things I learnt while I was there was about the real plight of the Kurds: quite simply that they're not really allowed to exist at all and certainly not allowed to speak their language," Pinter said in an interview at the time, after his play was performed for the first time at the Royal National Theatre in London in October 1988. He was responding to a question on why he wrote the play.
"For example, there's a publisher who wrote a history of the Kurds and was sent to prison for 36 years for simply writing a history of the Kurds," he went on saying, in an apparent reference to the then-situation of prominent sociologist İsmail Beşikçi.

"… The springboard, in answer to your question, was the Kurds, but this play is not about the Turks and the Kurds. I mean, throughout history, many languages have been banned -- the Irish have suffered, the Welsh have suffered and Urdu and the Estonians' language banned; the Basques' language was banned, you know, at various times," Pinter said.

Taking into consideration the recent adoption of a bill by the Turkish Parliament that allows full-time state broadcasts in Kurdish, one might be tempted to file Pinter's remarks away as "ancient" quotes, belonging to the time when Turkey had not introduced reforms expanding freedoms and rights in line with its European Union membership process.

However, the reality argues otherwise: Hundreds of complaints have been filed by prisoners, particularly since early 2007, to several chambers of the Human Rights Association (İHD) regarding a ban on the use of Kurdish in telephone conversations with their families.

Sevim Salihoğlu, secretary-general of the Ankara-based İHD, told Sunday's Zaman that both the headquarters in the capital and İHD chambers in several cities have been receiving a lot of complaints on the issue of Kurdish language usage in prisons since early 2007.

"Sometimes, a complaint letter is signed by 10 prisoners. I can surely say that we have received complaints from more than 200 separate prisoners," Salihoğlu added. The relatively high number of formal complaints the İHD has received suggests the problem affects many more.

The ongoing problems are related to a Justice Ministry guideline outlining rules for "Management of Criminal Execution Institutions and Execution of Penalties and Security Precautions."

Article 88 of the guideline outlines "the right to talk on the telephone." Entry (p) of the same article says: "Speaking takes place in Turkish. However, if the convict doesn't know Turkish or if it is determined that his/her relative -- via examination in location of the relative with whom the convict notified [authorities] he will talk to -- doesn't know Turkish, the talk is allowed and recorded. If it is understood as a result of examination of the records that talk is used for activities which have the possibility to constitute a crime, then the convict is not allowed to talk in any other language than Turkish with the same relative."

Lawyer Ömer Halefoğlu, member of administration board of the İHD Diyarbakır branch, shared similar complaints by three prisoners with Sunday's Zaman. "I've been convicted at Erzurum Special Type Prison. Around since one year. I'm not allowed to have telephone talk in Kurdish which is my mother tongue with my family. My mother and my aunty cannot speak at all Turkish. That's why, I can't talk to them since one year. I'm demanding legal assistance from you in order to be able to talk in my mother tongue," Fettah Karakaş, one of those prisoners, wrote in broken Turkish in a letter dated April 15, 2008.

Regarding three complaints, one from 2007, the İHD Diyarbakır office sent letters to the Justice Ministry, Parliament's Human Rights Commission and the Prime Ministry's Human Rights Presidency (BİHB). So far, only Human Rights Commission Chairman Zafer Üskül, of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), has responded. He basically and briefly referred the İHD to "The Guideline Concerning Management of Criminal Execution Institutions and Execution of Penalties and Security Precautions."

"In a response letter to Üskül, we will list problems stemming from the guideline itself. For example; we will explain the arbitrary practices of security forces during examination of the relative with whom the convict notified authorities he will talk to, and we will explain that the final report after these examinations does not always reflect the truth," Halefoğlu told Sunday's Zaman in a brief telephone interview.

Sources from the Justice Ministry also referred to the entry (p) of Article 88 of the same guideline, when approached by Sunday's Zaman.

"The minister has asked for detailed information regarding news reports on the issue, and it is still being assessed whether there is a trouble in the implementation of the guideline," the sources, who requested anonymity, told Sunday's Zaman, referring to recent Turkish media reports on the issue.

As Pinter's 20-minute-long play begins, the audience sees a group of women waiting all day through snowfall to visit their imprisoned husbands and sons. As Salihoğlu explained, almost all of those relatives subject to grievances due to the guideline are old people who cannot speak Turkish at all. And the majority of those old people are female, needless to say because they lack even a primary school education. The ministry's final evaluation and the response to hundreds of complaints will give a clue on whether Kurdish is still a "mountain language" in Turkey.