The Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, adopted in 1996, referring to the most prominent script on human rights, reads, “All language communities have equal rights”, “Everyone has the right to carry out all activities in the public sphere in his/her language”, and “All language communities are entitled to the official use of their language within their territory”. However, it has been known that, whether in their laws or practices, some states violate those linguistic rights and many languages have been destroyed deliberately and/or doomed to be extinct. UNESC, in 1999, marked 21 February as International Mother Language Day in order to encourage governments to respect linguistic rights, raise the linguistic awareness all over the world, and protect linguistic diversity. As is known, on 21 February 1952, university students were shot to death while they were holding a protest condemning the occupation of Bengal by Pakistan and the ban the Bengali language. During the following incidents, many human rights, particularly right to life, were violated. UNESCO, declared that day as a universal day in order to commemorate those killed in demonstrations and to ensure similar events not to recur anywhere. Since 1950s, there have been serious struggles worldwide for linguistic rights, and a lot more languages were approved official since then and bettered.
As a result of political and judicial struggle for Kurdish to be taught and to be used in public services, the Kurdish Language was acknowledged as a language but not as an official language to be used in the public sphere. It has been ignored in public sphere and neither previous governments nor the AKP Government secured the language constitutionally. The year 2016 could be seen a black year in this issue. Many workers travelling to Istanbul and other parts of Turkey in search of a job were lynched for speaking Kurdish.
Even yesterday, in Aydın Province, 5 high school students were detained over singing in Kurdish. Then they were brought to court and released under judicial control. Independent schools teaching Kurdish were all closed down and sealed, such as the Private Ferzad Kemanger Primary School with over 250 students who had been educated in their mother language. Many day care centres and kindergartens were also shut down. The personnel of nursery schools named Zarokistan (run by the Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality) and Xalxalok (run by Kayapınar District Municipality) were all dismissed. Instead of a mother-tongue-based multilingual education, now a curriculum in single language (Turkish) is imposed. A great number of culture centres of municipalities were shut down by the government and the personnel were dismissed. Also, actors and employees of Diyarbakır City Theatre performing in the Kurdish language were all discharged from work.
Along with many other media outlets closed by state of emergency decrees, each one of the radio, TV, newspaper, magazine and news agency serving in Kurdish was closed down. Especially, as in the single case of Zarok TV (kid’s channel), the pressure by the international community led the channel be opened again, but not another one. Similarly, the associations called Kurdi-Der, İstanbul Kurdish Institution, and Kurd-Der, all of which had been working for teaching and doing research in the Kurdish language were decertified. They had branch nets in all Kurdish cities as well as many other western cities of Turkey. Following the end of peace talks, tens of journalist/media employees were detained, some of whom are still under arrest. Many authors of Kurdish origin were dismissed from their public offices for using the Kurdish language in their works; and many were detained while some were arrested.
All whatever happened, unfortunately, shows that the Turkish State has been doing far worse than in the 1990s, and that a century-old policy of denial and assimilation has been getting more and more violent. We, the human rights and justice organisations, would like the Government behave in accordance with the spirit of the International Mother Language Day and ratify the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights. We hope to be able to live in a more democratic and equal geography on the next International Mother Language Day 21 February. We celebrate the International Mother Language Day of the speakers of all languages in Turkey and of the peoples whose languages were ignored and rights were taken away.
Diyarbakır Bar Association
Diyarbakır Medical Chambers
Human Rights Association, Diyarbakır Branch-İHD
Human Rights Foundation of Turkey-Diyarbakir Office- TİHV
The Association for Human Rights and Solidarity for the Oppressed (MAZLUM-DER) Diyarbakır Office