Ministry of Education Expects Teachers’ Reports on Racist Propaganda Movie

Teachers at primary schools were supposed to report on their students’ reactions while watching the violent movie produced by the General Staff of the Turkish Army and deliver the results to the Education Ministry’s district offices.

The government department has confirmed that the screening of the highly contentious “documentary” has not been banned yet as demanded by education trade union Eğitim-Sen.

Head of Cultural Affairs in the district of Kadıköy on the Asian side of Istanbul Mr. Hasan Demir issued an announcement to the schools in his district demanding the reports on the effects of the screenings to be submitted to the district authority by 6 March the latest.

Demir was quoted as saying by the Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, "We have requested these reports in order to follow if there has been any work done on the documentary in schools. The reports are going to be forwarded to the Ministry of Education. Until today we did not expect a detailed analysis of this kind of circular order.”

Furthermore, Demir mentioned that the district authority has not received any reports regarding the DVD yet, but should do so by 6 March.

On the other hand, representatives of NGOs such as the Peace Initiative, delegates of Armenian foundation schools, the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly, the Social Democracy Foundation (SODEV), the History Foundation and the International Hrant Dink Foundation have stated that they will pursue the issue, criticizing that no concrete step of action has been taken yet.

DVDs remain at schools so far

The press division of the Ministry of Education confirmed that there has been no decision taken yet to collect the DVDs from the primary schools, but that a decision from July last year revoking the order to show the film was still in place. The district authorities are following up any further developments. Press advisor of the ministry Mr. Mustafa Oymak emphasized that following an according directive they would take the necessary action. (TK/VSK/AG)

* This news item was published in the weekly Agos newspaper on 6 March 2009 no. 675 under the headline "'Sarı' Raporlar Bekleniyor".