Students sentenced to prison for demanding education rights
Students sentenced to prison for demanding education rights
Two Dicle University students, Hasan Basri Boztemir and Yasemin Acer, were sentenced to ten years and seven months in prison each for participating to the university protests on October 2009. The protests were organized to ask the right to be taught in one owns mother tongue. The heavy sentence was handed down today by Diyarbakýr Fifth High Criminal Court.
The students were charged with “making propaganda for an illegal organization and “hindering education.”
As part of the court’s decision, the student will be stripped of their civil rights for five years while a reduction in the sentence will not be considered.
Acer and Boztemir’s lawyers will appeal the court’s decision.
Early this year university students in Istanbul reiterated the demand for education in the mother language on the occasion of the International Mother Language Day, on 21 February. One student gave a symbolic Kurdish lesson next to the campus of the Yýldýz Technical University.
The Youth Platform for the Brotherhood of People marked the International Mother Language Day on 21 February with their demand for education in the mother language for the Kurdish people. The platform members claimed education in the mother language to be a fundamental human right.
About 50 students joined the action organized right next to the campus of the Yýldýz Technical University in Istanbul. They shouted slogans in Turkish as well as Kurdish, calling for “equal and scientific education in the mother language free of charge”, and chanting, “Long live the peoples’ brotherhood”, “Oppression does not stop us”, “The universities belong to us, they will be liberated by us”, “Barricades against gangs, not against students” and “Custody, arrests and raids will not stop us”.
The students posted a banner reading, “Language is life – education in the mother language is a right”. In a symbolic lesson, student Erdal Beþer taught the Kurdish alphabet that includes the letters X, Q and W, which are not common in Turkish.
A bit of history
Kurdish language has been banned in Turkey since the creation of its modern borders in 1923. The Kurds were not allowed to speak their mother tongue, not even in their own homes, in the streets, in any social gatherings, let alone in schools, governmental institutions, or any other places. In fact, according to the Turkish government, the Kurds were non-existent in Turkey and were known as “mountain Turks”. The reason behind such denial and censorship was that speaking in Kurdish was a matter of national security, thus will divide Turkey.
It was not until January 1991, 72 years after the creation of Turkey, did the Turkish government made a huge –huge in Turkey, or else very minor in humanistic level- concession and allowed “the Kurds, concentrated in 13 provinces, to speak-but not write — their language”. However, still, the Kurds were not able to read, write, or study in Kurdish; neither were they allowed to wear their traditional Kurdish clothes; nor were there allowed to be publications of any newspapers, books, magazines, or any other form of writing and there were not allowed to be radios and TVs in the Kurdish language.
The Kurds make up 17-25 percent of Turkey’s population located mainly in the southeast Turkey. Since 1923, and with some changes in 1991, the policy on the Kurdish language had remained as brutal, oppressive, assimilative, and a linguistic genocide. When in 2003 Recep Erdogan became prime minister, he complained that nothing had been changed since the jailing of Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s leader, Abdullah Ocalan, to increase the rights of the Kurdish language and people.
The Kurdish politicians and activists have long been pushing for reformation in the Turkish policy to allow the Kurdish language to be taught in public educational institutions. The Kurdish political party in Turkey, Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) gathered one million signatures demanding public education to be taught in Kurdish for the Kurds in their region and presented the petition to Parliament’s Petition’s Commission last week, and was rejected.
Turkey, the “only democracy” in the Middle East has long been breaking the very basic principle of democracy and still is. How can Turkey call itself democratic while depriving 20 million of its citizen the freedom to learn education in their mother tongue? The very identity of any ethnicity comes from their language and once the language is erased or extinct, the ethnicity will become extinct as well. Turkey’s policy is not only against the foundation of democracy, but also is against the United Nations Chater:
Any deliberate act committed with intent to destroy the language, religion or culture of a national, racial or religious group on grounds of national or racial origin or religious belief, such as (1) Prohibiting the use of the language of the group in daily intercourse or in schools, or the printing and circulation of publications in the language of the group; and (2) Destroying or preventing the use of libraries, museums, schools, historical monuments, places of worship or other cultural institutions and objects of the group.
Turkey’s hypocrisy is mesmerizing. During his visit to Germany on March 4th, 2011, Turkey’s prime minister Recep Erdogan told the 10,000 of Turkish descent Dusseldorf: “Yes, integrate yourselves into German society but don’t assimilate yourselves; no one has the right to deprive us of our culture and our identity”. Yet, in regarding the Kurdish education in Turkey, he says: “…But do not request education in the mother tongue from us because the official language of Turkey is Turkish”. What about the Kurdish culture and identity, Mr. Prime Minister? What gives you and the Turkish government the right to deprive us of our most basic and fundamental right?
It is only evident that Turkey has no intention of being democratic and giving the Kurdish people their natural right of learning education in their mother tongue; and it is only evident that their reasoning of no longer banning the Kurdish language to be spoken in private in 1991 was due to pressure from European Union and not on humane principles. It is also evident from the rejection of the petition last week to teach Kurdish in public education. Turkey should learn from the philosophy of Nelson Mandela –whom in 1999 received Turkey’s highest award, the Ataturk International Peace prize, in which initially he refused on the basis of human rights violation against the Kurds – which he beautifully professes: “if you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his mother tongue language, that goes to his or her heart.”
The students were charged with “making propaganda for an illegal organization and “hindering education.”
As part of the court’s decision, the student will be stripped of their civil rights for five years while a reduction in the sentence will not be considered.
Acer and Boztemir’s lawyers will appeal the court’s decision.
Early this year university students in Istanbul reiterated the demand for education in the mother language on the occasion of the International Mother Language Day, on 21 February. One student gave a symbolic Kurdish lesson next to the campus of the Yýldýz Technical University.
The Youth Platform for the Brotherhood of People marked the International Mother Language Day on 21 February with their demand for education in the mother language for the Kurdish people. The platform members claimed education in the mother language to be a fundamental human right.
About 50 students joined the action organized right next to the campus of the Yýldýz Technical University in Istanbul. They shouted slogans in Turkish as well as Kurdish, calling for “equal and scientific education in the mother language free of charge”, and chanting, “Long live the peoples’ brotherhood”, “Oppression does not stop us”, “The universities belong to us, they will be liberated by us”, “Barricades against gangs, not against students” and “Custody, arrests and raids will not stop us”.
The students posted a banner reading, “Language is life – education in the mother language is a right”. In a symbolic lesson, student Erdal Beþer taught the Kurdish alphabet that includes the letters X, Q and W, which are not common in Turkish.
A bit of history
Kurdish language has been banned in Turkey since the creation of its modern borders in 1923. The Kurds were not allowed to speak their mother tongue, not even in their own homes, in the streets, in any social gatherings, let alone in schools, governmental institutions, or any other places. In fact, according to the Turkish government, the Kurds were non-existent in Turkey and were known as “mountain Turks”. The reason behind such denial and censorship was that speaking in Kurdish was a matter of national security, thus will divide Turkey.
It was not until January 1991, 72 years after the creation of Turkey, did the Turkish government made a huge –huge in Turkey, or else very minor in humanistic level- concession and allowed “the Kurds, concentrated in 13 provinces, to speak-but not write — their language”. However, still, the Kurds were not able to read, write, or study in Kurdish; neither were they allowed to wear their traditional Kurdish clothes; nor were there allowed to be publications of any newspapers, books, magazines, or any other form of writing and there were not allowed to be radios and TVs in the Kurdish language.
The Kurds make up 17-25 percent of Turkey’s population located mainly in the southeast Turkey. Since 1923, and with some changes in 1991, the policy on the Kurdish language had remained as brutal, oppressive, assimilative, and a linguistic genocide. When in 2003 Recep Erdogan became prime minister, he complained that nothing had been changed since the jailing of Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s leader, Abdullah Ocalan, to increase the rights of the Kurdish language and people.
The Kurdish politicians and activists have long been pushing for reformation in the Turkish policy to allow the Kurdish language to be taught in public educational institutions. The Kurdish political party in Turkey, Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) gathered one million signatures demanding public education to be taught in Kurdish for the Kurds in their region and presented the petition to Parliament’s Petition’s Commission last week, and was rejected.
Turkey, the “only democracy” in the Middle East has long been breaking the very basic principle of democracy and still is. How can Turkey call itself democratic while depriving 20 million of its citizen the freedom to learn education in their mother tongue? The very identity of any ethnicity comes from their language and once the language is erased or extinct, the ethnicity will become extinct as well. Turkey’s policy is not only against the foundation of democracy, but also is against the United Nations Chater:
Any deliberate act committed with intent to destroy the language, religion or culture of a national, racial or religious group on grounds of national or racial origin or religious belief, such as (1) Prohibiting the use of the language of the group in daily intercourse or in schools, or the printing and circulation of publications in the language of the group; and (2) Destroying or preventing the use of libraries, museums, schools, historical monuments, places of worship or other cultural institutions and objects of the group.
Turkey’s hypocrisy is mesmerizing. During his visit to Germany on March 4th, 2011, Turkey’s prime minister Recep Erdogan told the 10,000 of Turkish descent Dusseldorf: “Yes, integrate yourselves into German society but don’t assimilate yourselves; no one has the right to deprive us of our culture and our identity”. Yet, in regarding the Kurdish education in Turkey, he says: “…But do not request education in the mother tongue from us because the official language of Turkey is Turkish”. What about the Kurdish culture and identity, Mr. Prime Minister? What gives you and the Turkish government the right to deprive us of our most basic and fundamental right?
It is only evident that Turkey has no intention of being democratic and giving the Kurdish people their natural right of learning education in their mother tongue; and it is only evident that their reasoning of no longer banning the Kurdish language to be spoken in private in 1991 was due to pressure from European Union and not on humane principles. It is also evident from the rejection of the petition last week to teach Kurdish in public education. Turkey should learn from the philosophy of Nelson Mandela –whom in 1999 received Turkey’s highest award, the Ataturk International Peace prize, in which initially he refused on the basis of human rights violation against the Kurds – which he beautifully professes: “if you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his mother tongue language, that goes to his or her heart.”
