When words are met with violence
When words are met with violence
The police attack yesterday against the people demonstrating to support the Kurdish politicians they have democratically elected and who are now facing heavy prison sentences, exposes once again the weakness of the Turkish state and authorities. Unable and unwilling to respond to words and proposals (by the Kurds) with words and counter proposals they resort to violence. Violence is the only language they can speak. And it is all the more symbolic the fact that the people peacefully demonstrating in the streets of Diyarbakýr were attacked also because they were demanding the right to speak their own language.
Paralyzed by this simple and natural request the state showed is brutal face once more. The Kurdish politicians and activists are being tried in the so called KCK (Democratic Confederation of Kurdistan) trial.
Thousands of demonstrators yesterday had first attended a meeting the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) organized at Ýstasyon Square. BDP co-leaders Selahattin Demirtaþ and Gülten Kýþanak, Democratic Society Congress (DTK) co-leaders Ahmet Türk and Aysel Tuðluk, deputies and Diyarbakýr Mayor Osman Baydemir led the demonstrators, who supported the politicians they have elected.
Inside the courtroom, the Kurdish politicians on trial once again reiterated their request to be able to defend themselves in their mother tongue, i.e. in Kurdish. The head of the court cut off the microphone, saying, “He defended himself in a language that we think is Kurdish.”
Salih Uysal, a lawyer for one of the defendants, said, “You cannot ignore a language that millions of people speak.” Then the head of the court said: “We know that millions of people speak Kurdish. We know that Kurdish is a language. We don’t object to that.”
But the court’s stenographers did not record the words of 31 politicians who spoke in the room because they spoke in Kurdish.
Over 150 Kurdish politicians and activists are accused of a variety of crimes, including membership in an illegal armed group, disseminating propaganda for an illegal group, threatening Turkey’s territorial integrity and violating laws on public demonstrations.
Paralyzed by this simple and natural request the state showed is brutal face once more. The Kurdish politicians and activists are being tried in the so called KCK (Democratic Confederation of Kurdistan) trial.
Thousands of demonstrators yesterday had first attended a meeting the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) organized at Ýstasyon Square. BDP co-leaders Selahattin Demirtaþ and Gülten Kýþanak, Democratic Society Congress (DTK) co-leaders Ahmet Türk and Aysel Tuðluk, deputies and Diyarbakýr Mayor Osman Baydemir led the demonstrators, who supported the politicians they have elected.
Inside the courtroom, the Kurdish politicians on trial once again reiterated their request to be able to defend themselves in their mother tongue, i.e. in Kurdish. The head of the court cut off the microphone, saying, “He defended himself in a language that we think is Kurdish.”
Salih Uysal, a lawyer for one of the defendants, said, “You cannot ignore a language that millions of people speak.” Then the head of the court said: “We know that millions of people speak Kurdish. We know that Kurdish is a language. We don’t object to that.”
But the court’s stenographers did not record the words of 31 politicians who spoke in the room because they spoke in Kurdish.
Over 150 Kurdish politicians and activists are accused of a variety of crimes, including membership in an illegal armed group, disseminating propaganda for an illegal group, threatening Turkey’s territorial integrity and violating laws on public demonstrations.
