Mayor Defends Child Prosecuted for Teaching Kurdish at Home

Ten-years-old child M.Ö. is under prosecution with Diyarbakır Sur District Mayor Abdullah Demirbaş by the local Chief Public Prosecutor's Office. M.Ö. is reported to give Kurdish lessons to other children at home along with the municipality's project "One story to each house" (in Kurdish: Sere Şeve Çirokek) which was launched three years ago.

Demirbaş supports the child for teaching Kurdish and denies the medi criticisms that M.Ö. has been used as a political tool.

"This is a distortion of events," he told bianet. "It should actually be emphasized how the mother tongue of the children is not being constrained. If everybody in this country was educated in their mother tongue, this child would not have been forced to turn her home into a school, nor would the municipality have to conduct such a project."

A shame to ban language and culture

Demirbaş continues: "It is the duty of the state to grant the right of education to its citizens. In my opinion those ones who claim bans for the people's language and culture should feel ashamed. We are still dealing with these bans in the 21^st century."

Meanwhile the young girl announced that she will continue teaching her own language. Demirbaş said: "There is no power to restrain us from speaking our language. The interrogation cannot hold us back. M.Ö. is just applying the Municipality's project."  

M.Ö. talked in Kurdish to the media

In Interviews by television and print media M.Ö. answered in Kurdish, saying: "If they call me to court I will speak Kurdish again. Is it a crime to learn and teach my mother tongue?"

Ten-years-old M.Ö. explained that she tremendously improved her Kurdish by visiting the Kurdish Language Research and Development Association (Kurdi Der). Demirbaş supported M.Ö. by having painted the room that was turned into a classroom at the girl's home.  

"Why is our mother tongue banned?"

M.Ö.'s mother said she does not know Turkish and that she teaches her daughter and her friends Kurdish: "Our children learn foreign languages like English at school. Why is our language banned? It is also our mother tongue and our right." Also the mother is going to make a statement at the prosecutor's office this week.

Together with the girl's father and mother also Demirbaş has been interrogated at the prosecutor's office last week. (EÖ/VK)