Children Banned to Speak in Kurdish

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A writing reading “I will not speak in Kurdish” attached on the wall of an elementary school in Turkey’s southeastern province of Şırnak was photographed by a parent.

The photograph was allegedly put on the wall by a teacher.

“Violation of Article 7 of Constitution”

- Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Şırnak MP Aycan İnmez took the matter to parliamentary agenda. İnmez posed the following questions demanding response from Minister of Education İsmet Yılmaz:

- Have the dispositions that take nationalism, which has become visible in the recent days in the educators working in Kurdish cities, become a subject of an investigation?

- Are the aforementioned racist and nationalistic warnings within the knowledge of you? Is there any instruction you sent to the schools in Şırnak with respect to students not to speak in Kurdish?

- Will your ministry run any research as to the psychological trauma that the children will have concerning their mother tongue being banned?

- Aren't the aforementioned warnings an explicit violation of Article 7 of Constitution, which reads “Civil servants…cannot make discrimination on language, race, gender, political thought, philosophical belief, religion and sect as they perform their job”? (PT/TK)