Kurdish Language Platform: If there is to be equality, it must first be in language

* Image: Kurdish Language Platform

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

The Kurdish Language Platform held a press conference at the Adıyaman Branch of the Confederation of Public Employees Trade Unions (KESK).

The press conference was attended by the Platform's spokespersons Şerefxan Cizîrî and Vahit Aba and Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Diyarbakır Provincial Co-Chair Zeyyat Ceylan as well as representatives of democratic mass organizations in the province.

Noting that they opened a representative office in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeastern province of Adıyaman, Spokesperson Cizîrî called on the people of Adıyaman to lay claim to their mother language.

Referring to Kurdish journalist and writer Musa Anter, or Apê Musa as he is commonly known in Kurdish, who was killed in Diyarbakır, another Kurdish-majority province in southeast Turkey, Şerefxan Cizîrî said, "As Apê Musa said, 'May even your whistle be in Kurdish."

The Spokesperson added, "We need everyone who sets their hearts on the Kurdish language and wants to make a contribution. Everyone has something to learn from one another here. What will bring us together is our language. We need to bring the problems about language to the agenda of politics. Mother language must be guaranteed by the Constitution."

Concluding his remarks, Şerefxan Cizîrî said, "If there is to be equality, then, it must first be in language."

Campaign for Kurdish

On the occasion of this year's International Mother Language Day on February 21, the Kurdish Language and Culture Network and Kurdish Language Platform launched a campaign to make Kurdish an official language* as well as a language of education in Turkey.

* According to the first sentence of Article 3 of Turkey's Constitution, "The State of Turkey, with its territory and nation, is an indivisible entity and its language is Turkish." The Article 4 of the Constitution also stipulates that "the provision of Article 1 regarding the form of the State being a Republic, the characteristics of the Republic in Article 2, and the provisions of Article 3 shall not be amended, nor shall their amendment be proposed."

(RT/SD)