Attacks against the Kurdish language continue in Bitlis after the AKP mayor took down the signs in Kurdish with vandals damaging the graves and tombstones of Serefxane Bedlisi, the author of the Serefname, and his family.
AKP has been implementing a political and cultural genocide in the cities of Kurdistan and continued to showcase their hostility against the Kurdish language in Bitlis.
The AKP government appointed trustees to the municipalities the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) won with landslide victories in 2014 and launched a campaign against the Kurdish language and culture. The Kurdish schools, preschools and cultural activities the municipalities were organizing were banned. Thousands of Kurdish politicians and patriots were arrested before and after the March 31 Local Elections.
The sign at the service building of the Bitlis Municipality put up by the DBP in Kurdish and Turkish was taken down on orders of the AKP Mayor Nesrullah Tanglay, and replaced by a sign written only in Turkish. AKP’s Tanglay later removed the sign by the entrance of the city that read “Welcome to Bitlis” in Turkish, Kurdish and English and replaced it with a Turkish only sign. The Tatvan district’s mayor from the AKP also took down the Kurdish sign by the municipality’s service building.
Another example of the attacks against Kurdish language and values in the AKP-MHP government emerged when the renowned Kurdish politician and historian Serefxane Bedlisi and his family’s graves and tombstones were vandalized.
