Human rights violations experienced in the prisons of east and southeast Anatolia continue to increase. In the prisons, the most basic human requests are met with disciplinary punishments, torture and maltreatment are carried out in the vehicles used to transfer arrestees and inmates to prison or court, inmates are arbitrarily deprived of their legally-vested rights by prison administrations, political prisoners are isolated from the outside world, in institutions whose populations exceed their capacity arrested people are forced to sleep on the floor, ill inmates are either not given treatment or are treated very slowly, Kurdish-language publications are not allowed inside, and seriously ill patients are not given medical discharges. Arrestees and inmates die from health problems every day, and the insensitivity, indifference and silence that these problems are met with weigh heavily on our conscience.
These inhumane practices create psychological pressure. Recently, the phone lines of both inmates and family members who speak Kurdish during telephone meetings have been being cut due to the meeting particpants’ speaking of Kurdish. We receive many applications from the prisons in our region regarding the imposition of this censorship. In some prisons, the receipt of the daily Kurdish-language newspaper Azadiya Welat along with publications such as Kurdish-language poems, short stories, and novels is arbitrarily obstructed. Finally, on 24 June 2009, a book that was previously sent to Diyarbakır D-type prison captive Salih Özbet by his son Izzet Özbek was bounced back to the captive’s family with the excuse that the book (a century-old Kurdish-language classic novel called Şıvane Kurmanc, by the writer Ereb Şemo) was illegal. We at the Human Rights Association came together with the goal of raising our voices against the sending-back of this book.
The 20 June 2009 publication of cabinet decision 2006/10218 of 3 March 2006 in the official gazete as decision 27264 brought section p of the Law Enforcement Management Agency and Regulations About the Enforcement of Security Measures’ 88th article’s second clause into effect. The article has been altered in the following way:
“p) Telephone meetings are conducted in Turkish. However, in the event that it’s declared that the inmate or the person he’s going to meet with doesn’t know Turkish, the conversation will be authorized and recorded. In a situation which, following an investigation of the recordings, it’s understood that the language was used to facilitate criminal activity, authorization won’t be given for the inmate to speak with the same individual in a language other than Turkish again.”
First of all, as the Human Rights Association, we had made many successive requests as an organization regarding the alteration of section p of the regulation’s 88th article. Making preparations without taking into account the views and recommendations of any civil society organizations, arrestees or inmates, or families experiencing trouble with speaking Kurdish is not a valid approach. We had passed on in full all of the applications we’d done regarding trouble experienced while speaking Kurdish in prisons and detentions centers to the relevant ministry. The following five-point package could solve the problems related to the speaking of Kurdish in prisons:
-
The carrying out of meetings in prisons and detention centers behind glass and with telephone receivers;
-
Every month, one face-to-face meeting in which it’s possible to speak Kurdish;
-
Weekly telephone calls home in which it’s possible to speak Kurdish;
-
The ability of prisoners and arrestees to engage in written correspondence with their families and relatives;
-
It’s recommend that Kurdish-language books, magazines, newspapers and so on be given to arrestees and inmates.
Meetings conducted by telephone have been included in such arrangements. Prohibitions on speaking Kurdish face to face in meetings are currently continuing.
Yesterday the distinguished Prime Minister Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan said that it would no longer be forbidden to speak Kurdish in prisons. Yet actions inside the prisons clearly show that that’s not the case. The information conveyed to public opinion by politicians has been misleading people. It can’t be thought that all bans on the Kurdish language in prisons have been lifted. The prohibitions continue in the present. The speaking of people’s own mother tongues with their families and visitors in prisons and detention centers must be decriminalized. This humane request must not be perceived as a political one.
This problem can’t be overcome with timid steps and without including or speaking to Kurds. We want the prohibition of the Kurdish language – that of one of the nations that founded this country – to be renounced. It’s a universal human right for all of the world’s citizens to be able to speak their mother tongues. It’s impossible to speak of an opening in the Kurdish issue in Turkey when the Kurdish language and Kurdish-language books are prohibited. Without lifting restrictions on the Kurdish language and without education in Kurdish, steps can’t be taken toward a solution to the Kurdish issue. No other topic can be discussed in a country where a language is forbidden. First, we want our language to be free in the public spehere, and then we want it to be taught as a language of instruction in schools.
The existence of the Kurdish people and their language is one of this country’s realities. In a multi-linguistic, multi-religious, multi-cultural land such as Anatolia, the outlawing of peoples’ languages and forcing them to communicate in one language clearly reveals the prevailing mentality of censorship.
Legal investigations are opened against and punishments given for Kurdish-language speeches given by politicians and also mayors who print Kurdish-language invitations, books, or public display posters. As the Human Rights Association, we want to express our disapproval of regulations governing where languages can and cannot be used, including Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic or any other language.
Language is a fundamental component of human identity. Both for humans and for society this constitutes a fundamental reference point of self-identification. In democratic societies, native languages are an inseparable part of personal identity. Education in one’s native language is also a fundamental human right. This summer – now – we want to solve the Kurdish question, stop the flow of blood and see the Kurdish language free everywhere.
Muharrem Erbey, Attorney at Law
Vice President of the Human Rights Association, President of the Diyarbakır branch