Speaking after the mass “march for mother tongue” staged in the main Kurdish city Diyarbakır (Amed) yesterday, on the first day of the 2013-2014 education year, Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) co-chair Gültan Kışanak said that the greatest discrimination in Turkey was seen in the field of education.

Kışanak pointed out that the Turkish state discriminated against Kurds by denying their mother language, imposing a ban on it and denying the right to have education in one's mother language.

BDP co-chair's speech was interrupted as riot police surrounded the crowd joining the demo. Kışanak strongly responded to the police intervention in a demo where people demand their right to use mother language and voice their opinions on the matter.

In response to the statements of Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç who has recently said that “Those who demand mother tongue education should go to north Iraq”, Kışanak said that; “Nobody should dare to give this answer to the people who demand to be educated in their mother language. These lands are the ancient territory of Kurds. This is the truth of thousands of years. We will decidedly obtain the right to be educated in our own language, in our own lands and in our own homeland. This doesn't depend on your ratification. We are not going anywhere, we are here and we will be continuing to stay here and to struggle until we build a democratic and free life on our own lands. We will be living in Kurdistan, as Kurds, speaking Kurdish and being educated in Kurdish”.

Referring to the debates on the “democracy package” to be announced by the government soon, Kışanak said the mindset that doesn't consider education in one's mother language to be a right was trying to lead the ongoing process in search of a solution to the Kurdish question to a deadlock.

BDP co-chair pointed out that Kurds and all other citizens who pay tax to the state must be offered service in return. Kışanak said that the Turkish state should stop levying taxes from Kurds if it refused to provide Kurdish as a service in public sphere. She said Kurds could then have the opportunity to provide education to their children in their mother tongue by managing the process of fund raising and association establishments by their own means.

Referring to the pledge students are made to take at schools every morning [which begins with the phrases “I am a Turk; I am honest; I am hardworking” and ends with “Let my entire being serve as a gift to Turkish existence”] , Kışanak underlined that; "We are letting our entire being serve as a gift to anyone".

BDP co-chair pointed out that Kurdish people should use their mother language in all areas and strongly defend its use to prevent the assimilation the Kurdish language is being subject to. Kışanak called on “whoever want their children to be educated in mother language” to exercise their democratic right to boycott and to support the democratic struggle.