Amed (Diyarbakir) Metropolitan City Co-mayor Gultan Kısanak commented on the closing of the schools opened to give education in Kurdish, saying: “We are ready to meet the demands of the people, for whichever language they demand to have education, within the context of local public services”.

Making a statement in front of the Ferzad Kemanger Education Support House, which opened to provide education in Kurdish and was then shut down by order of the Diyarbakır governor on the grounds it lacked legal permission, Kısanak reacted against the sealing of the doors of the school and said: “We want to prepare ourselves for the future by providing education in our mother tongue, Kurdish, and in the different dialects of Kurdish”.

Kisanak stated that they demanded the removal of all obstacles to education in Kurdish, adding: “People have taken an initiative to remove these obstacles by their own means and opened a Kurdish school. The mother tongue and the existence of the Kurds has been recognised. The policies of denial are not valid anymore. Private schools can be opened”.

“They say that they would issue permission if they received an application for opening a private school. But this is injustice. While the children whose mother tongue is Turkish can have free education as a public service in Turkey, the same holds as well for the Kurdish children in their own lands; they have the right to have free education in their mother tongue. To claim the contrary is discrimination”, said Kısanak.  

Kisanak stressed that there are parents who want to send their children to Kurdish schools, there are children who want to have education in Kurdish and there are Kurdish teachers who are waiting to be appointed and added:  “The only obstacle is the state that holds a monopoly over the right to education. So then, let’s remove this obstacle. If you don’t want to undertake this work, then leave the organisation of education to local administrations with all their possibilities and financial resources. We want to prepare ourselves for the future by providing education in our mother tongue, Kurdish and in the different dialects of Kurdish”.

Kısanak added that as the local administrations they will support the people’s efforts to have education in the mother tongue.

The secretary of the Amed branch of the Education Workers’ Union (Egitim-Sen) said language is the medium of culture and identity of a people, adding that preventing education in the mother tongue means nothing other than denying that language.