Doğubayazıt youths launched a campaign to promote traditional Kurdish clothes as gowns (Fistan), shawl (Şal) and vests (Şapik), which -when worn - lead recently to legal proceedings with the accusation of "propaganda for a terrorist organization”.

The campaign aims to sustain and flourish local traditions of clothes and garments. Adem Karahan, one of the campaign's initiators, stressed the recent ban on wearing Kurdish clothes and garments and said that the Turkish state intends to abolish and extinguish one of the most important Kurdish cultural traits.

Karahan pointed out that the people need to react more to these cultural infringements and stand up for their language, culture and soil.

Karahan explained the campaign's goal as: "There is only one goal which we strive for with this campaign: protection of the Kurdish culture. We see the younger generations distancing slowly from our local traditional clothes. We hope to stop this development with our campaign. We are a people with a culture, let us all protect it together."