Kurdish forbidden in shopping mall in Cizre

The management in a newly opened shopping mall in Cizre forbids its employees to speak Kurdish.

Cizre district of Şırnak province has been under a government-appointed administration since October 2019. In recent months, the trustee appointed by the Turkish Ministry of the Interior has had all Kurdish language signs at historical sites removed. In many cafés, employees have been forbidden to speak Kurdish with customers. The same phenomenon is now also evident in the "Cizre Park" shopping mall, which opened shortly before the Feast of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha).

According to employees of one of the shops in the mall, the owner told them that the premises were being monitored acoustically and visually and that the staff was forbidden to speak Kurdish. One customer asked an employee - in Kurdish - why he answered in Turkish despite his knowledge of the language. The employee then explained that the management has banned Kurdish, saying: "If we speak Kurdish, we lose our jobs.”