FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU TURKEY AND THE KURDS

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU, TURKEY AND THE KURDS
of 1983 was annulled in 1991, Turkish is still the only official language and the use of
any other language in education, media, and political life and in many other areas is
still very strongly restricted, as we know.
In 2002 a group of students at the Istanbul University signed a petition that demands
optional lessons in Kurdish and announced this activity also with a press conference
and they probably didn’t expect that their actions would trigger similar actions
in universities and high schools countrywide. Eventually students from 24 universities
tried to submit more than 10,000 petitions to the authorities and thousands of
families of primary and high school students joined them with their own petitions to
speak Kurdish at schools and universities. But the reply of the authorities was rude
and sharp. More than 1,359 people were taken into custody and 143 people were put
into prison for trial and 46 were discharged from their schools or universities and
this action I think brought really up the question of optional Kurdish lessons on demand
for a moment in the centre of attention. But of course this is only one aspect of
the matter of language rights, and after this KHRP started an inspection to research
broader subjects in the context of the status of the Kurdish language in Turkey. And
during this inspection it became clear that an extreme official paranoia existed. The
permission for the use of Kurdish outside private life is regarded by the Turkish state
as surrender to terrorism, disintegration of the state, and the first step that the Kurds
would take on the way to establishing a separate state.
It was in this atmosphere that the demand for only optional lessons in Kurdish was
regarded as dangerous and unacceptable. But my question is why is the idea of optional
lessons in Kurdish regarded as a sensitive subject that causes mass arrest, accusation
of terror and discrimination? Apparently the government considered that
the students who supported or participated in the campaign aimed at establishing a
separate Kurdish state. The government has concluded that the whole campaign was
conducted by the PKK. In other words, according to the government, a campaign for
optional Kurdish courses is considered as terrorism and discrimination. Fortunately
some people are voicing different perspectives. In April 2002 the chief judge of the
European Court of Human Rights stated on Turkish television that broadcasting by
minority groups in their mother tongue would not mean the disintegration of Turkey,
he said, on the contrary, if the minorities would express themselves it would be much
more comfortable. So it was not the first time that people stood up for their rights to
use the Kurdish language.
I’ve been following the Kurdish question already for a long time, and maybe one
of the reasons for my interest is the singularity with the language struggle that took
place in my country, in Belgium, in the 19th and deep into the 20th Century, and
honestly it is still going on, if you think of the case of Brussel Hallo Filvoerd for
example. For this reason I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest
feelings of respect, sympathy, and appreciation for several Kurdish people who have
worked throughout their lives for the recognition of Kurdish rights.
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