The Education Committee of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) released a statement marking the International Mother Language Day.

The statement reads as follows;

“February 21st has been declared as "International Mother Language Day" by the United Nations, as a day of struggle against colonialism. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) selected this day as the international day of the mother language in 1999. Many languages were declared as the shared mentality, heritage, and wealth of humanity.

Languages which are used for all daily actions and activities and spoken and understood together, are part of the group of mother languages. The definition of a mother language has been expanded even more to include those languages that are learned without real education and with the help of parents and the community in which one is raised.

Colonialism is no longer limited to the simple annihiliation of colonized peoples and homelands – at the same time, they also forbid, language, culture, and social values of colonized people and those connected to them; they want to exterminate them with assimilatory politics and humiliate them with social destruction.

These attacks, which are like societal genocide and crimes against humanity, on the mother language - which is a part of human and social existence and a tool for the awakening and creation of the mentality of the people - are tolerated. According to scholarly data, there are around 2,500 languages facing extinction in the world today. Many old Mespotamian languages have been destroyed by colonialist systems, and others face extinction in our age.

In Turkey, the Kurdish language, languages like Assyrian-Syriac, Laz, Homshetsi, Pomak, Abaza, Circassian, Turkmen, and many other languages are under threat of extinction as a result of assimilatory policies.

As the Convention on the Rights of the Child clearly states, one of the most fundamental human rights is that of education in the mother tongue. The obstruction of mother-tongue education is one of the greatest violations of human rights, and is a crime against humanity. Colonialist states openly commit human rights violations every day against the Kurdish people.

From the establishment of the Turkish Republic onwards, they have attempted to annihilate the existence of the Kurdish nation and the reality of Kurdistan and the Kurdish nation, and attempt to hide this truth with inhumane policies of genocide and extermination, mechanisms of assimilation and severe oppression. However, the struggle for speaking, writing, and living in Kurdish has continued, and will continue, unceasingly. In this honorable struggle, the Kurdish people under the guidance of the Freedom Movement and Abdullah Ocalan serve as an example of an historic and respected struggle.

The soil of Mesopotamia, which was the cradle of countless civilizations throughout history, became the starting place of human society and the first place where language developed. The language and culture of Kurds, which is one of the oldest languages of the region and was known as "Kurti" in ancient nail writings, fell under the policies of assimilation. As a result of barbaric, annihilatory and hegemonic politics that have been applied over the years, the rich Mesopotamian civilization and culture has been turned into a barren desert. The illegalist mentality against language, culture, and faith is now led by the fascist AKP-MHP oppressors in the most barbaric and inhuman ways.

Because millions of children can't use their mother tongue or recieve education in their mother tongue, they experience a major loss. Consequently, the currently tolerated assimilatory and restrictive policies on different mother languages, which are an important part of democratic and academic education, must be ended. Every type of obstacle that stands in the way of mother-tongue education of the people and society must be removed. In this age, in which the concepts of democracy and human rights are not separate from reality, these genocidal actions and fascist attacks on different cultures and languages cannot be explained away with words. Explanations and attempts to elaborate on this must be evaluated in light of these actions.

On this occassion, we as the KCK Education Committee again condemn the cultural, linguistic and ethnic genocide that we have previously discussed. As part of the Freedom Movement, we declare our continuing and determined struggle against these happenings until we are victorious. On this basis, with hope and anticipation, we celebrate 21 February, International Mother Language Day, and the struggle for the evolution of humanity and a world in which all different colors, languages and cultures can live freely. We declare our resoluteness and faith in the struggle to remove all "legal" and economic obstacles in the way of all languages and peoples.”