The trustee appointed to Amed’s Kayapınar Municipality transformed free schools into Qoran schools, and is planning to make Zarokistan Xalxalok, which offers pre-school education in Kurdish, a center of assimilation.
Trustee Mustafa Kılıç, who was appointed to Kayapınar Municipality after the arrest of Co-mayor Mehmet Ali Aydın on December 8, has a special agenda for Kayapınar, which is the target of AKP supporters due to its development potential. Trustee Kılıç has fired dozens of municipal workers and is disabling projects such as Cegerxwîn Culture Center and Zarokistan Xalxalok that are centered on the needs of Amed’s residents.
CAME FROM THE MUFTI’S OFFICE AND CLOSED DOWN EDUCATION SUPPORT HOUSES
After being closed down by the governorate in 2015, the Peyas and Ali Eren education support houses resumed their activities and prepared middle and high school students for exams. However, trustee Kılıç closed both of the institutions down again. Nearly 1500 students were receiving education from 10 teachers in these centers which housed students from low-income families. A Diyarbakır Mufti’s Office official named Şükran, who was appointed to Kayapınar Municipality as the deputy chair, was tasked with redesigning the education support houses and transformed these centers into Qoran courses, despite the fact that Kayapınar Municipality has many buildings and alternative spaces for Qoran courses.
ARTISTS TAKE A STAND
Employees of Cegerxwîn Culture Center, which was established by the municipality and has been offering culture and arts education to thousands of people since 2010, paused their activities in order to protest the appointed trustee. The center offered students music, theater, painting, cinema and folklore dancing courses, and graduated 700 students every year. The 15 teachers and 30 employees at the center paused their activities due to their opposition to the appointed trustee.
ZAROKİSTAN ALSO TARGETED
Kayapınar Municipality opened Zarokistan Xalxalok as the first Kurdish pre-school in Kurdistan, and had 120 students receive education in Kirmanci and Kirmancki dialects of Kurdish. Students were also offered English and Kurdish history classes. The trustee is reportedly unwilling to shut down Zarokistan because of possible backlash from parents, but is planning to replace the teachers and use the pre-school as a space of assimilation in the future.
