On the first day of the 2015-2016 school year, Turkish schools are being boycotted upon a call by DTK in demand of mother-tongue education as a basic right and protest of the state's assimilation policies on language.

The boycott is joined by over 80 percent in the province of Van.

Classes remain empty across the city today as students join the boycott by up to 80 percent, mainly in Şehit Fırat, Süphan, Karşıyaka and Akköprü neighborhoods. Schools are boycotted by 100 percent in Xaçort neighborhood.

Education Union Eğitim-Sen Van Branch Chair Gülcan Kaçmaz Sayyiğit said schools were boycotted by around 60 percent in the city center and by up to 100 percent in neighborhoods where attacks by state forces and resistance by local people intensify.

Sayyiğit underlined that protests and actions will continue as long as the ban on mother-tongue education, one of the major obstacles to the advancement of democracy and freedoms, remains.