Turkish parliament's press office has penned a report against opposition Green Left Party (YSP) lawmaker Ömer Öcalan for speaking Kurdish in a press conference held in the parliament.
Okt 4,
2023. Posted by Balkan Periscope - Hellas
Turkey’s
opposition Green Left Party (YSP) Şanlıurfa Lawmaker Ömer Öcalan held a press
conference in Kurdish language in the National Assembly on Oct. 2, the second
day of the new legislative year.
However, the Press Office of the Turkish National Assembly penned a report on the MP for “making an official statement in a language other than Turkish.”
After the
conference, Öcalan said “He had to make that statement in Kurdish.”
The Chief
Public Prosecutor’s Office had recently launched an investigation into MP Ömer
Öcalan due to his statement about jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader
Abdullah Öcalan. He had said in a local YSP organizations’ public meeting that
“We are working for Abdullah Öcalan’s release, and we will keep working until
Mr. Öcalan and Kurdistan is free.”
Kurds make
up around a fifth of Turkey’s population, but few are able to speak their
mother tongue due to a years-long systematic oppression of the language.
Turkey’s
current constitution, ratified after the 1980 military coup, does not entirely
prohibit the use of Kurdish, but successive governments have repeatedly cracked
down on its use.
After
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to
power in 2002, it loosened the restrictions on the Kurdish language to attract
the votes of Kurdish citizens. But with the collapse of the ceasefire between the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the government in 2015, the latter started
to reverse advances made for the use of the Kurdish language.
HDP MP not
allowed to speak Kurdish in parliamentHDP MP not allowed to speak Kurdish in
parliament
Duvar