Trustees who have been appointed by Statutory Decrees to municipalities the Democratic Regions Party (Demokratik Bölgeler Partisi - DBP) won in landslide victories continue to change the names given to parks and to tear down monuments to destroy the collective memory. Following the previous tear downs of monuments erected for Orhan Doğan, Kurdish politician who devoted his life to peace, Kurdish philosopher Ehmedê Xanî, Uğur Kaymaz, who was 12 years old when he was murdered with 13 bullets, and for the memory of the Roboski massacre, now the monument erected in memory of the 16 civilians who were killed during the Newroz celebrations in Nusaybin in 1992 has been torn down on the order of the trustee.

TAHIR ELCI, MEHMED UZUN, CEGERXWÎN, CEYLAN ONKOL

Trustees have also taken down signs in Kurdish, Syriac and Armenian and replaced them with signs in Turkish alone; and they changed the names of several parks named after Ceylan Önkol, who had been killed by a mortar shell when she was 12, Tahir Elçi, chairperson of the Diyarbakır Bar Association who was killed in the Sur district, Leyla Qasim, Medeni Yildirim, artist Ali Temel, witer Mehmet Uzun and famed poet Cegerxwîn.

Some of the monuments torn down by trustees are:

* On January 8, 2017 the monument erected within the Rojava Park in the Diclekent neighborhood of Diyarbakır’s Kayapınar district in memory of the 34 civilians massacred in the Roboski village in Şırnak’s Uludere district was removed on orders from the trustee.

* On February 25, 2017 the monument erected in Cizre in memory of Kurdish politician Orhan Doğan, who has gone down in collective memory with his struggle for peace and spent a lifetime in prison for it, was taken down on orders from the trustee.

* On March 30, 2017 District Governor appointed trustee to the Yenişehir Municipality Mehmet Özel had the reliefs about the history of the Mervanis in the Mervani Park removed.

* On June 25, 2017 the trustee appointed to the Doğubeyazıt Municipality in Ağrı tore down the statue of Kurdish writer Ehmedê Xanî in the center. The trustee led municipality claimed it had been an accident, but the statue hasn’t been replaced.

*On October 2, 2017 the Diyarbakır Yenişehir trustee removed the sign in the park named after important Kurdish writer Mehmed Uzun and the monument with Kurdish letters and the Hilbe Agri anthem.

* Statues of human-headed lions of Assyrian myhology, known as “Lamassus”, were removed from the entrance of the Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality by the trustee as they were “heretic icons”.

* Famed Kurdish poet Ahmed Arif’s bust in Sur, Diyarbakır was attacked. The bust was removed from its pedestal and damaged.

* The statue of Uğur Kaymaz, who was 12 when he was killed with 13 bullets in front of his home along with his father Ahmet Kaymaz on November 12, 2004, was removed by orders from the trustee and a clock tower was built in its place.

* On February 20, 2018 Deputy Governor appointed trustee to Diyarbakır’s Sur Municipality Bilal Özkan ordered the other monument erected in memory of Uğur Kaymaz.

* District Governor Ergün Baysal appointed trustee to Mardin’s Nusaybin Municipality had the Newroz Monument, erected in memory of the 16 civilians who were killed when state forces opened fire on the Newroz celebrations in 1992, removed from the district.