The Survival of Kurdish Identity in Turkey

The Survival of Kurdish Identity in Turkey

By Soliman Aboutaam

Overview

The Kurds make up the world’s largest stateless population, with more than 30 million living in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey; they make up a fifth of Turkey’s population. Like other indigenous populations in the post-World War I era in the Middle East, European diplomats decided the Kurds’ fate. The private 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement between British and French diplomats Mark Sykes and Francois-George Picot split the region into French and British-administered territories without considering the interests of the local Arab populations.¹ Four years later, the Treaty of Sèvres between the Allied Powers and Turkey would exclude any prior promises of establishing Kurdistan, and in 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne finalized Turkey’s borders.²

These treaties marked the beginning of a century-long struggle to preserve the Kurdish identity in the face of a repressive and nationalist Turkish regime, which continues to suppress the democratic rights of the Kurds by imposing a policy of political isolation, silencing Kurdish democratic voices, and engaging in state violence and land dispossession in southeast Turkey. Consequently, the Kurdish identity has manifested itself in political, academic, and cultural resistance movements, such as through the creation of Kurdish political parties, language-based institutions, and NGOs. But Turkey’s discriminatory, nationalist, and authoritarian state policy has led to the characterization of the Kurdish movement and its support as a terrorist threat to the Turkish state. This gross overgeneralization has led to arbitrary arrests of Kurds and their torture, imprisonment, and destruction and dispossession of land in the southeast over many decades. This crackdown continues under the Erdogan regime, exacerbated more recently by the 2015 elections, the breakdown of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) peace talks, and the 2016 military coup attempt.  All the while, the Kurdish people struggle to maintain their cultural identity in the face of the overlaid identity of the Turkish state that has historically aimed to erase the indigenous identity.³

Historical Repression of Kurdish Identity since World War I

Today, more than 70% of Kurdish women in Turkey are illiterate in any of the region’s languages as Kurdish men learn how to read and write Turkish during compulsory military service.⁴Due to the regime’s historical linguicide of Kurdish languages, such as Kurmaji, Sorani, and Zazaki, their literacy has not been widely documented. The origins of this illiteracy and lack of education can be traced to the March 3, 1924, ban on all Kurdish schools, organizations, publications, and religious fraternities, including the caliphate, which had prevailed as an Islamic and political institution in various forms for centuries in the region.⁵

A month later, the Sheikh Sa’id rebellion took place.⁶ The majority of the 15,000 rebels involved in the uprising led by Sa’id, a Sheikh of the Naqshabandi Suffi Islamic Movement in Turkey, were Kurdish nationalists and Islamists. With the aim of establishing Sharia Law, they attacked the newly established government in Ankara, Turkey’s capital.⁷ They were seeking to establish Sharia law after the abolishment of the caliphate. They attacked the recently established government in Ankara. Consequently, the country’s founder and first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, violently suppressed the revolt, sparking a decades-long Kurdish-Turkish conflict. In the years following, the Turkish government moved to eliminate any socio-cultural remnant of Kurdish identity, including dress, names, tribal associations, and language, in a state policy to quell burgeoning Kurdish national movements.⁸ Eastern provinces of Turkey, where Kurds are densely populated, remained under martial law until 1939; approximately 250,000 to 1.5 million Kurds were deported and massacred between February 1925 and December 1939.⁹

Atatürk also pursued a total Turkification policy during his 1921-34 tenure, such as “Citizen, Speak Turkish!” that pressured non-Turks to speak Turkish in public.¹⁰ Given that the Kurds were a significant minority, Turks viewed them as an ethnic threat to the homogenous Turkish identity of the country; this sentiment was triggered by the ethno-nationalist agenda propagated by the Eurocentric principle of nation-state building. This agenda can be described in the words of a Turkish minister of justice who, in 1930, declared, “I won’t hide my feelings. The Turk is the only lord and the only master of this country. Those who are not of pure Turkish origin will have only one right in Turkey: the right to be servants and slaves.”¹¹

Through political organizations, the Kurdish movement began to gain momentum and long-desired representation. The re-emergence of political and public expressions of Kurdish identity appeared throughout the ’60s and ’70s. The establishment of well-known Kurdish movements includes the founding of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Turkey (KDP) in 1965, modeled after the Iraqi Kurds’ KDP; the Revolutionary-Democratic Cultural Associations (DDKD) in 1974-1975, which split into a number of Kurdish political branches due to differences and personal rivalries; and the Marxist-Leninist political and armed guerrilla movement the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK or Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan in Kurdish) in 1978.¹² But in 1980, a military coup led by retired Turkish General Kenan Evren overthrew the Turkish government, resulting in a three-year military reign and additional challenges for Kurdish political representation.¹³ In 1982, the military regime ratified the new Turkish constitution, in which it declared that “no language other than Turkish shall be taught as a mother tongue to Turkish citizens at any institution of education,” further codifying the anti-Kurdish and general anti-Turk government sentiment and legislation.¹⁴ Furthermore, Turkey’s Constitutional Court would begin the trend of frequent constitutional shutdowns of pro-Kurdish and leftist political parties in 1982, ordering the shutdown of 19 political parties by 2023.¹⁵

One month before the military junta relinquished power to Turgut Özal, who served as the prime minister of Turkey from 1983 to 1989 and president from 1989 to 1993, it expanded the law’s restrictions, passing Law No. 2932 in October 1983, which forbade the use of any language but Turkish.¹⁶ It also banned any publications in Kurdish. Kurds who refused to assimilate or resisted were often met with severe repression. Milliyet, an independent Turkish newspaper, reported on Sept. 1, 1984, that the regime detained 178,556 prisoners, consisting mainly of political leftists and Kurdish separatists, activists, and dissidents.¹⁷ The PKK’s insurgency would begin in August of the same year.¹⁸

Political prisoners were subject to systematic torture and many were imprisoned in the infamous Diyarbakir Military Prison, described by Turkish authorities as a place for prisoners to train to be “proper Turks.”¹⁹ Inmates were tortured for not singing the national anthem loud enough or for refusing to participate in pro-Turkish chants such as “I am so proud to be Turkish” or “A Turk is worth the whole universe” or “Turks have brought civilisation to all the countries they have conquered!”²⁰ A detailed report by Amnesty International in 1985 provided the testimonies of prisoners who have faced severe torture, including those of Kurdish lawyers and alleged dissidents such as the former Kurdish mayor of Diyarbakir, Mehdi Zana.²¹ Zana was imprisoned for over 10 years after the 1980 Turkish coup in the Diyarbakir Military Prison for his activism, often holding speeches in Kurdish.

Mehdi describes one form of torture he and his fellow Kurds were subjected to by infamous Diyarbakir prison administrator Captain Esat Oktay Yıldıran: 

“When a new prisoner arrived at the prison, Captain Esat met him at the entrance and then turned to a guard and said, ‘Prepare him a bath; then take him to the dormitory.’ This was a ritual. So almost twenty guards accompanied the prisoner. He received a good welcoming thrashing, and then he was dragged, unconscious, to the ‘bath,’ a bathtub full of shit in which they left him for a few hours. Sometimes they told him, ‘Eat it now.’ Other times they put the new arrival naked on a stool above the excrement and left him there for two days in that pestilent and acidic odor. Or they took him, covered in shit, and threw him in a packed-full cell. After a few hours, they came back to get him in order to lock him up again in the cell filled with excrement, and they left him there one or two nights. When he left the cell, because of the acidic emanations, he was pale, poisoned. Other times blindfolded, his hands tied, the prisoner was isolated for two days in a cell full of rats.”²²

In 2021, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that the notorious prison will be turned into a museum, a move that upset many former prisoners and rights activists, citing it as whitewashing a dark side of Turkish history.²³ Currently, a section of the prison stands as a museum open to the public, while the rest remains an operational prison.

In 1991, President Turgut Özal, who was of partial Kurdish origin, lifted Law No. 2932, and Kurds were able to speak and publish in their native language, although broadcasting in Kurdish remained illegal in Turkey until 2002.²⁴ But the crackdown on Kurdish activists continued. Zana was arrested again between 1994 and 1995 on charges of “separatist propaganda” related to a speech he made before the Sub-Committee on Human Rights of the European Parliament on Dec.3, 1992.²⁵ He had already been sentenced to two years for the same charges in relation to a speech he gave in Bursa in the southeast for the People’s Labour Party, a pro-Kurdish political party.²⁶ The Party was viewed as a threat to the regime as it regularly held speeches in front of audiences of up to 10,000 people in the southeast.²⁷

Continued Turkish State Violence Against Kurds and Displacement of Kurds in the Southeast:

The conditions of the Diyarbakir Military prison make up a fraction of human rights abuses committed by the Turkish state against Kurds in the southeastern region, which is the most populated region for Kurds in the world, with more  than 17 million Kurds as of 2023. That number continues to rise due to the region’s higher birth rates compared to the lower birth rates of western Turkish-speaking regions.²⁸ The region is subject to high rates of violence and forced displacement due to human rights violations perpetrated by Turkish security forces against Kurdish locals, including torture and extrajudicial killings as a means of quelling the aspirations of Kurdish separatism, with recent evidence of mass graves.²⁹ It is punished indiscriminately and disproportionately in part due to the existence of the PKK, which has historically operated throughout southeast Turkey.³⁰

Security forces often fail to make a distinction between civilians and PKK members. The counterinsurgency efforts against the PKK have led to the displacement of 275,000 to 2 million people since the fighting broke out between the two groups in August 1984.³¹ By 1996, fighting between Turkish security officials and the PKK led to the complete or partial depopulation of some 2,685 villages and hamlets in the southeast. Former Chief of the Turkish General Staff Dotman Gáreo termed this counterinsurgency plan the “go hungry and surrender strategy.”³² In 1997, Turkey designated the PKK a terrorist group, followed by the US and EU in 2004. As of 2023, campaigns against the PKK in the southeast have led to the displacement of 1 to 3 million people.³³ In addition, Turkish government programs to deal with the displaced have been entirely inadequate, with no compensation being awarded for villagers suffering from indiscriminate attacks.³⁴

Much of the fighting between the PKK and Turkish regime is focused in rural areas of the southeast, though the insurgency group is known for attacking state-owned enterprises in Turkey and abroad. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict between the PKK and the Turkish regime, with attacks also conducted in urban areas such as Istanbul as of mid-2023.³⁵

Historically, the insurgency group executed Kurds who were thought to be traitors, such as those who joined the “provisional village guards,” an armed and paid paramilitary force created by the Turkish government that recruited impoverished Kurdish locals to fight Kurdish insurgents in the late 90s.³⁶ These recruits were confronted with the choice to either become village guards, maintain control of their land, and confront the PKK or risk violent expulsion from their areas and/or destruction of their land and flee to Western Turkey. The Turkish judiciary made every effort to deny claims of forced recruitment and Turkish state violence, forcibly disappearing those who spoke up. One such example is Mehmet (or Mustafa) Gürkan, who said that Turkish security forces burned his village and tortured him; he has not been seen since he was arbitrarily detained and forced onto a regime helicopter on Aug.18, 1994.³⁷

The Turkish regime also committed massacres against demonstrating Kurdish civilians, most infamously in the southeastern municipality of Lice in the Kurdish majority district of Diyarbakir between Oct. 20-23, 1992. At least 30 Lice residents were killed in the indiscriminate crackdown by regime forces, more commonly known as “The Massacre of Lice,” and 100 were wounded.³⁸ The massacre was in response to a PKK attack on a transformer and the murder of a senior gendarmerie officer that was blamed on the PKK. The Gendarmerie is a security force under the control of the Ministry of Interior routinely accused of human rights abuses by human rights organizations and the United Nations.³⁹During the crackdown, 401 houses and 242 shops were destroyed by regime security forces, and half the people living in Lice fled to nearby settlements.⁴⁰ The identified perpetrators, Diyarbakir Gendarmerie Regimental Commander Colonel Eşref Hatipoğlu and First Lieutenant Tünay Yanardağ, were charged with “premeditated murder,” “encouraging the people to riot,” and  “forming an organization on the purpose of committing an illegal act,” but neither have been arrested and both remain free.⁴¹

Authoritarian Legislation Against Human Rights Defenders and Kurds:

The attacks and repression of Kurds in the southeastern municipalities are rooted in Turkish legislation. According to the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), Turkey’s Anti-Terrorism Law No. 3713 — passed on Dec. 4, 1991 — is used to “fully restrict rights and freedoms and silence the voices of human rights defenders” due to the “excessively vague and broad definition of terrorism in the law” that allows peaceful human rights defenders to be labeled as “terrorist offender.”⁴² Thus, the imprisonment of thousands of Kurds remained legally justified to the regime. 

In 2015, Turkey’s repressive anti-terror Law No. 3713 expanded to target not only Kurds but any regime dissent. After the end of the 2013-15 truce between the PKK and the regime on the “Kurdish issue,” the Turkish regime adopted a number of repressive laws to reign in political opponents and Kurdish dissidents, the most prominent being the establishment of special courts that would try people for offenses under the Anti-Terrorism Law.⁴³

In July 2016, a section of the Turkish military staged a major coup that sought to overthrow the Erdogan government.⁴⁴ The fighting killed some 250 people and injured 2,193, others including civilians, and ultimately failed.⁴⁵ Consequently, the regime declared a two-year state of emergency that was characterized by a severe crackdown on any organizations or movements that were considered a threat to the regime. Between 2016 and 2018, the anti-terrorism law was weaponized to shut down 1,300 associations and foundations and 180 media outlets were permanently closed down on the grounds of unspecified links to terrorist organizations.⁴⁶ The nationwide statutory shutdown included the suspension of 94 Kurdish NGOs in 20 provinces and several pro-Kurdish media organizations.⁴⁷

Other laws further increased the authoritarian power of the regime, such as the Law of Police Powers No. 6638, also known as the Homeland Security Package.⁴⁸ This law expands police powers to conduct searches, use weapons, wiretap, detain individuals without a warrant, remove demonstrators from scenes of protest, and increase penalties for certain actions taken by demonstrators, among many others. It also reformed Turkey’s gendarmerie, transitioning power from the Turkish Armed Forces to the Ministry of the Interior. Law No. 6639 enabled government control over the Internet, giving the government power to immediately remove content or websites if it deemed there to be a risk to the public or national security, a common authoritarian move. Turkey adopted Law No. 7154 under the declaration of a two-year state of emergency following the failed coup attempt in 2017, making these measures permanent.⁴⁹

In the leadup to the 2023 national elections, the regime exploited these laws to arrest dozens of Kurds in coordinated police raids on April 25, 2023. These raids targeted the homes and offices of 128 Kurdish journalists, political party officials, and lawyers. Technical equipment, computers, books, and documents belonging to journalists were also confiscated during the raids by the Diyarbakir Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.⁵⁰

In 2024, these laws continue to be abused, with Turkish police frequently detaining pro-Kurdish mayors to be replaced by state officials over charges of PKK ties despite an absence of evidence. For example, in June 2024, pro-Kurdish Mehmet Siddik Akis of the Hakkari province was arrested for “terrorism.” He was part of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) and was arrested after it gained control of several large towns in the southeast after the March local elections that challenged Erdogan’s rule in the southeast.⁵¹ The DEM party is a constituent party of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), but took “up the flag of the democratic struggle from the HDP”⁵² in the 2023 general elections to mitigate the risk of further political targeting, arrests, or shutdown of the HDP. Similar to the HDP, Turkish officials have accused the DEM of links to the PKK, which the DEM has consistently denied.⁵³

The steep rise in the number of prosecutions against human rights defenders under Articles 6 and 7(2) of the Anti-Terrorism laws and Article 314 of the Turkish Penal Code exemplifies how widely the counter-terrorism legislation has been used in recent years.⁵⁴ Between 2016 and 2021, more than 310,000 individuals were sentenced for membership in an “armed terrorist organization”; by 2017, more than 100,000 civil servants were dismissed or fired from their jobs, over 50,000 citizens were arrested, and more than 1,500 NGOs were closed on terrorism-related charges.⁵⁵ In 2018, out of 115,753 individuals indicted, 108,412 were convicted. These laws lack a clear definition of what constitutes an armed terrorist organization and the offense of membership in the armed terrorist organization, enabling the use of overly broad interpretations of the laws by Turkish judges and prosecutors to investigate, prosecute, and convict critiques or dissenters potentially against the regime. In 2022, more than 1,600 lawyers were prosecuted, 615 of whom were arrested.⁵⁶

As of 2023, the regime has convicted hundreds of thousands of people under the anti-terrorism laws, dismissed more than 130,000 public servants, and canceled 230,000 passports, with most arrests and detentions taking place during the two-year state of emergency.⁵⁷ Although these figures include those accused of being linked to the PKK, the mass arrest, conviction, and dismissal from jobs of hundreds of thousands of people point to the state’s authoritarian, anti-democratic abuse of the newly established laws. 

Moreover, these broad counterterrorism laws have been used by the state to justify the escalation of aggression against majority Kurdish cities, districts, and municipalities in the southeast, particularly since 2015, but also after the passing of Law No. 3713 in 1991. Consequently, regime-aligned actors are not held accountable by the Turkish judicial system since they are operating under and protected by the discriminatory statutes of Turkish law. Amnesty International provides a detailed analysis of the existing anti-terrorism legislation used to target civil society and further demonstrates the current state of the authoritarian regime.⁵⁸

Political Isolation of Pro-Kurdish Democratic Parties: The People’s Democratic Party Efforts 

The People’s Democratic Party (HDP) is the largest predominantly Kurdish political party in Turkey and was recently and aggressively targeted by the regime.⁵⁹ Although it is not strictly a Kurdish political party, as this would increase the risk of arrests and constitutional shutdowns, it is largely perceived as such. It was founded on Oct.15, 2012, by the Peoples’ Democratic Congress (HDK), a coalition that included the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and other national minorities, leftists, women’s associations, and environmentalist groups. The HDP described itself as a party that seeks “equality, freedom, peace, and justice” and demands a “well-functioning democracy; such rights be constitutionally assured for those who speak different native languages and are of different religious or ethnic backgrounds too” and works for “all oppressed and exploited people’s.”⁶⁰

According to the Kurdish Peace Institute, the HDP is distinct and represents the most legitimate challenge to the anti-Kurdish status quo.⁶¹ It openly reached out to new non-Kurdish constituencies for votes and collaboration, and its popularity has verily threatened the Turkish regime’s authority. More specifically, it directly contributed to Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) only two local elections and mayoral losses in the past 10 years.⁶² The AKP’s third local election loss was in March 2024 to the Republican People’s Party (CHP), an opposition party that many HDP members tacitly voted for as the CHP had the best chance to compete against the AKP and oust Erdogan from power.⁶³

In a sustained effort to discredit the opposition and undermine their authenticity, the Turkish regime often falsely accuses the HDP and other Kurdish-aligned groups of being political vessels for the PKK. False claims against Kurdish-aligned political groups have become the norm in Turkey, in accordance with authoritarian regulations. By June 2021, at least 23 Kurdish parties had been abolished on spurious claims of supporting terrorism and ethnic separatism.⁶⁴ The HDP consistently denies any formal links to the PKK⁶⁵ and claims that such libel is due to the HDP’s opposition to Erdogan’s regime. Indeed, the pro-Kurdish political movement follows a decentralization agenda known as “democratic autonomy,” some of which is rooted in the theories of the currently imprisoned Abdullah Ocalan, the founder of the PKK.⁶⁶ These theories refer to Ocalan’s anti-capitalist book “Democratic Nation,” which discusses the need for a peaceful and political solution to the Kurdish question.⁶⁷

On Nov.4, 2016 — during Turkey’s state of emergency following the 2016 attempted coup — opposition politician Selahattin Demirtaş and 11 other members of the HDP were arrested on charges of “carrying out terrorist propaganda” based on speeches he made supporting peace negotiations between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).⁶⁸ On Sept.7, 2018, Demirtaş was sentenced to four years and eight months after initially facing a sentence of 142 years.⁶⁹ The European Court of Human Rights appealed to release Demirtaş, claiming the ruling’s “ulterior purpose of stifling pluralism and limiting the freedom of political debate” ignored the European Convention on Human Rights, of which Turkey is a signatory. An Ankara court rejected the appeal. As of May 16, 2024, Demirtaş faces a prison sentence of 42 years in prison: 20 years for “undermining the unity and integrity of the state”; four years and six months for “inciting an offense”; two years and a six-month sentence for speeches that were “inciting people to disobey the law”; multiple sentences on charges such as “making terrorist propaganda.”⁷⁰

In November 2021, Turkey’s Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court of Appeals requested an indictment to dissolve the HDP and ban its 451 party members from politics for five years, making the HDP the eighth pro-Kurdish left-wing party to face legal action for closure since 1993.⁷¹ The accusations came from repeated pressure in March 2021 from the leader of pro-Erdogan, far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahçeli, to close the HDP due to it being “the center of activities carried out in line with the aims of the PKK/KCK terrorist organization” and as such goes against the “indivisible integrity of the state with its territory and nation.”⁷²

Prosecuting authorities did not submit material proof to support the prosecution’s case and built their cases on correlations between events. For example, they used the fact that the HDP and Kurdish-rooted parties that preceded it were founded after the PKK decided to carry out political and armed activities against Congress in 1990, thus indicating a correlation between the two parties without any evidence to substantiate their claim, suggesting there are “structural similarities” between the HDP and PKK and so the HDP should be shut down.⁷³ According to the International Federation for Human Rights, there is “no concrete or reliable evidence attributable to the HDP as an institution was presented in the indictment, and no justification was given for the request for the party’s dissolution, which would violate the right to political representation of over 10% of the voters in the last elections.”⁷⁴ The dissolution of Kurdish political parties such as the KDP violates the right to freedom of association enshrined in Article 11 of the European Court on Human Rights (ECHR) and Article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Turkey is also a party and must protect political party activities and guarantee the right to form or join political parties.⁷⁵

Recent Crackdown and Violence against Kurdish Journalists and the HDP: 

After the end of the ceasefire with the PKK in July 2015, HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtas, who campaigned on a platform of peace and coexistence, faced political pressure from the regime while trying to further distance the HDP from the PKK. He urged both sides to return to peace, but the conflation of the HDP with the PKK posed a serious threat to the Kurds’ political future in Turkey as the Turkish regime continued to implement a “policy of isolation” on the party, according to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.⁷⁶

Attacks on the HDP party office and on Kurdish neighborhoods before the 2015 elections were “inextricably linked to Erdogan’s concerted post-election smear campaign against the party and its leader, Selahattin Demirtaş, accusing them of being terrorists — smears for which the horrific PKK attacks on police and soldiers are now being used to provide a convenient justification.”⁷⁷ The United Nations documented the displacement of up to half a million people, mostly of Kurdish origin, from indiscriminate attacks on Kurdish majority municipalities such as Sur, Nusaybin, Cizere, and 30 other towns and neighborhoods between late July 2015 and the end of August 2016 in southeast Turkey: “[Turkish security forces committed] massive destruction, killings, and numerous other serious human rights violations…no credible investigation has been conducted into hundreds of alleged unlawful killings, including women and children…not a single suspect was apprehended, and not a single individual was prosecuted.”⁷⁸ Furthermore, some 10,000 teachers were reportedly dismissed on suspicion of having links with the PKK. The resumption of conflict with the PKK and the HDP was used as an impetus for punishing the HDP and its Kurdish base. 

While the regime continues to engage in aerial bombardment of alleged PKK targets in neighboring Iraq and Syria, domestically the most recent major public crackdown of Kurds occurred three weeks before the 2023 elections, when Turkish officials detained between 110 and 150 journalists, politicians, lawyers, and activists in an operation mainly in Diyarbakir, the largest city in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey, and targeted 21 provinces accused of links to the PKK.⁷⁹ This crackdown occurred as Erdogan viewed the HDP as a legitimate threat to the AKP’s rule. According to the vice-president of the Diyarbakir Bar Association — one of the region’s most important civil society organizations that actively works against the regime — no reason was given for the operations, in which police raided offices and houses.⁸⁰ “There are artists, politicians, NGO representatives and lawyers among them” Ozdemir said in an interview.<⁸¹ The AKP would lose the elections in Turkey’s biggest political pushback to Erdogan’s party in history. 

Ongoing Repression of Kurdish Identity and Pro-Kurdish NGO Work:

Currently, Kurds in Turkey face the challenge of retaining their cultural identity on their ancestral lands in the southeast region, while approximately 2 million Kurds living in Istanbul attempt to assimilate into a deeply nationalist Turkish culture predicated on the historical criminalization and repression of the Kurdish language.⁸² It is common for Kurds living in Istanbul to be literate in Turkish and English, but illiterate in the Kurdish language, the most common dialects being Kurmanji and Sorani. For example, a May 2024 study by the Socio-Political Field Research Center surveyed the declining use of Kurdish at home among 1,267 people across 16 provinces; only 42.2% of Kurds speak Kurdish regularly at home. Nearly 40% of children between the ages of 12 and 17 cannot speak their Kurdish mother tongue, and another 25% have very limited language. Overall, 64.8% of the participants indicated that they primarily used Turkish at home. The highest usage of the Kurdish language was by those over 65.⁸³ These statistics can be attributed to the efficiency of successive regime crackdowns and persistent efforts to discourage and eliminate the use of the Kurdish language. 

Unfortunately, the lifting of Law No. 2932, which banned the Kurdish language in public and private, did not stop the regime from actively repressing the Kurdish language. In 2017, the Turkish government shut down the Kurdish Institute of Istanbul following the failed coup attempt.⁸⁴ As mentioned previously, the regime used the state of emergency to suspend the activities of 94 NGOs in 20 provinces in a nationwide statutory shutdown, including several pro-Kurdish media organizations such as the Kurdish Institute of Istanbul, founded in 1992 to promote the Kurdish language, culture, and literature.⁸⁵

Recognizing the stakes of this ban and the threat to the Kurds’ democratic rights, former volunteers and workers from the Kurdish Institute of Istanbul rushed to band together and form the NGO Kurdish Research Association just a month after the statutory degree. ⁸⁶ The association is dedicated to the education and preservation of the Kurdish language and identity and is run by a majority of Kurdish staff. They aim to promote a culture of diversity and democracy, establish a documentation center for access to the Kurdish language, and detect and identify violations of the right to use the mother tongue. They deal with at least three dialects of Kurdish, including Kurmanji, Zazaki, and Sorani, and emphasize the need to pass on the language to the next generation.⁸⁷

In an interview, a Kurdish Research Association employee said that many families think it’s “no use teaching it [Kurdish] to kids” due to the bias or repression they may face and shared their parents’ fear of speaking the language at all.⁸⁸ Additionally, the organization faces daily pressure from the government. An employee mentioned that “we could be shut down any day” as they struggle to find public places where they are allowed to host Kurdish events.⁸⁹ Due to the historical ban on the language, much of its canon and grammar had never been properly documented, and its culture was shared only via oral histories, which these types of organizations aim to revive for the coming Kurdish generation, convinced of the youth’s excitement to learn. Another employee expressed the risk of those attending the classes, saying, “Those who come to the courses now must be courageous.”⁹⁰

Another civil society organization, KIRAATHANE, founded in 2018, is Istanbul’s first literature house that hosts the city’s writers and readers of all ages to discuss literature, the arts, and current events. It functions as a “free word center,” promoting democratic activities such as independent journalism, aiming to publish books and articles outside of the mainstream media, emphasizing freedom of expression for Kurdish publications, and occasionally providing grants to journalists.⁹¹ They hold weekly Kurdish language learning workshops for ethnic Kurds who have not had the opportunity to learn how to read or write Kurdish languages in Istanbul due to forced assimilation. They also contribute to the publication and teaching of other minorities in Turkey, such as Greeks and Arabs. 

Much of their work is dedicated to Kurdology, which includes the study of Kurds, the history of the Kurdish language, and the geography of Kurdistan. They offer books teaching English and Turkish speakers of Kurdish languages, primarily in Kurmanji. This work is critical to documenting the syntax, grammar, and canon of the language. There aren’t enough books for children in Kurdish, or they have been censored, urging the need to educate the young generation and publish Kurdish children’s books for the preservation and growth of their identity. Most Kurdish classics have also not been published in Turkey, which the organization aims to contribute to as well as digitizing their grammar materials. 

Conclusion & Recommendations

Due to the historical suppression of Kurdish citizens and the ongoing crackdown being carried out by Turkey’s authoritarian regime, the international community should support efforts by Kurdish and Turkish civil society to express Kurdish identity, culture, language, and perspective. Doing so would contribute to advancing the democratic rights of the Kurds as the group continues to seek equal treatment, political representation, and self-determination. During the 2016 state of emergency, the European Convention on Human Rights received 8,300 new applications from Turkey, nearly four times as many as in 2015.⁹² By 2023, Turkey had the highest number of allocated and pending applications before the ECHR, with “34,650 applications…allocated to judicial formation, an overall decrease of 24 percent compared with 2022 (45,500), according to Europe’s top human rights court in 2023,” followed by Russia with 12,450 cases.⁹³

The unwillingness to cooperate with Kurdish democratic movements promoting peace between Turks and Kurds is indicative of the continued failed peace process and the continuation of the systemic persecution of the Kurds tracing back to the inception of the Turkish nation-state after World War I. Furthermore, the authoritarian crackdown on all Turkish civil society and the expansion of anti-terrorism laws after 2015 have allowed the Turkish regime to smear the HDP and Kurds as terrorists, with little to no accountability, as it expands its hold on power over the country. 

As with many indigenous resistance movements, the free expression of Kurdish identity is inextricably linked to the security of not only the Kurdish people but of all Turkish citizens who wish to live in peace and coexistence. Despite these difficult realities, there is hope for preserving and growing the Kurdish language and identity in large part thanks to the steadfast democratic work of pro-Kurdish NGOs, pro-Kurdish political parties, and a continued acknowledgment of the historical atrocities committed against the Kurds. Turkish citizens, politicians, and international tourists, which neared 50 million in 2023, should make a proactive effort to engage, donate, and publicize Kurdish NGOs, pro-Kurdish democratic political parties, and support Kurdish artists to bolster Kurdish society.

1 Mark Sykes & Francois George-Picot. “The Sykes-Picot Agreement: 1916.” 1916. The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/sykes.asp

2 The Armenian National Institute. “Treaty of Sevres” 3 January 1916.” Armenian National Institute. https://www.armenian-genocide.org/Affirmation.236/current_category.49/affirmation_detail.html. ; The American Society of International Law. “The Sèvres Centennial: Self-Determination and the Kurds.” ASIL Insights 24, no. 20. 10 August 1920. https://www.asil.org/insights/volume/24/issue/20/sevres-centennial-self-determination-and-kurds. ; Republic of Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Lausanne Peace Treaty Part I: Political Clauses.” Republic of Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Accessed June 24 2024. https://www.mfa.gov.tr/lausanne-peace-treaty-part-i_-political-clauses.en.mfa.

3 Suren Jamal Mohammed & David Romano. The Kurdish Conflict in Turkey: The Central Role of Identity Recognition (or Lack Thereof). Taylor & Francis Online. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449057.2023.2275229#abstract

4 Bengio, Ofra. Kurdish Awakening: Nation Building in a Fragmented Homeland. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/15/edited_volume/chapter/1338792

5 University of Central Arkansas. “Turkey (Kurds, 1922–Present).” Political Science Department, University of Central Arkansas. Accessed July 8, 2024. https://uca.edu/politicalscience/home/research-projects/dadm-project/middle-eastnorth-africapersian-gulf-region/turkeykurds-1922-present/.

6 Olson, Robert W., and William F. Tucker. “The Sheikh Said Rebellion in Turkey (1925): A Study in the Consolidation of a Developed Uninstitutionalized Nationalism and the Rise of Incipient (Kurdish) Nationalism.” Die Welt Des Islams, vol. 18, no. 3/4, 1978, pp. 195–211. JSTOR, Accessed 24 June 2024. https://doi.org/10.2307/1570466 

7 Cornell, Svante. The Naqshbandi-Khalidi Order and Political Islam in Turkey. Hudson Institute. 3 September, 2015. https://www.hudson.org/national-security-defense/the-naqshbandi-khalidi-order-and-political-islam-in-turkey ; Washington Kurdish Institute. “Sheikh Said of Piran.” Washington Kurdish Institute. Last modified July 25, 2018. https://dckurd.org/2018/07/25/sheikh-said-of-piran/

8 Respond Crisis Translation. “Histories and Geographies of Kurdish Suppression.” Respond Crisis Translation. https://respondcrisistranslation.org/en/newsb/ks-histories-and-geographies-of-kurdish-suppression#:~:text=Following%20the%20violent%20suppression%20of,meaning%20absolutely%20no%20Kurdish%20education

9 University of Central Arkansas. “Turkey/Kurds (1922-present).” University of Central Arkansas. Accessed July 8, 2024; Dominique, Callimanopulos. “Kurdish Repression in Turkey.” Cultural Survival. https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/kurdish-repression-turkey

10 University of Michigan Library. “National Identity in Turkey.” Online Exhibits. University of Michigan Library. Accessed June 24, 2024. https://apps.lib.umich.edu/online-exhibits/exhibits/show/greco-turkish-war/national-identity-turkey

11 Cultural Survival. “Kurdish Repression in Turkey.” Cultural Survival Quarterly. 9 February 2010. https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/kurdish-repression-turkey

12 Workers’ Liberty. “The Kurds and the Turkish Left in the 1960s.” Workers’ Liberty. Last modified June 22, 2021. https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2021-06-22/kurds-and-turkish-left-1960s ;  Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Examining Extremism: The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).” Center for Strategic and International Studies.

13 July 2023. https://www.csis.org/blogs/examining-extremism/examining-extremism-kurdistan-workers-party-pkk ; Gunter, Michael M. “The Kurdish Problem in Turkey.” Middle East Journal 42, no. 3 (1988): p 394. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4327776. ; Van Bruinessen, Martin. “The Kurds in Turkey.” Middle East Research and Information project. January/February 1984. https://merip.org/1984/02/the-kurds-in-turkey/

14 Constitutional Court of the Republic of Turkey. “Constitution of the Republic of Turkey.” 7 November 1982, p 41. https://www.anayasa.gov.tr/media/7258/anayasa_eng.pdf

15 Human Rights Watch. “Turkey: Closure Case against Political Party Looms.” Human Rights Watch. 10 January, 2023. https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/01/10/turkey-closure-case-against-political-party-looms

16 Human Rights Watch. “Turkey: Human Rights Developments.” Human Rights Watch. Accessed June 28, 2024. https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/turkey/turkey993-08.htm#:~:text=2932%2C%20%E2%80%9CThe%20Law%20Concerning%20Publications,prohibited%20all%20publishing%20in%20Kurdish

17 Wenger, Martha. “Torture in Turkey” Middle East Report 149. November/December 1987. https://merip.org/1987/11/torture-in-turkey/ ; Mepham, John. “Turkey: Reading the Small Print.” MERIP Middle East Report, no. 149 (1987): 19–25. https://doi.org/10.2307/3012062.

18 Human Rights Watch. “Turkey Human Rights Development: Burned Out.” Human Rights Watch. Accessed July 10 2024. https://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/turkey/Turkey1002-03.htm

19 Kurdistan Commentary.  “Prison Nr. 5 (1980-1984): A Documentary about the Military Prison of Diyarbakir.” Kurdistan Commentary. 20 July 2020. https://kurdistancommentary.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/prison-nr-5-1980-1984-a-documentary-about-the-military-prison-of-diyarbakir/

20 Diyarbakir Zindani. “Diyarbakir Prison.” Diyarbakir Zindani. Accessed July 8, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20090829151453/http://www.diyarbakirzindani.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=215&Itemid=9

21 Amnesty International.  “Turkey Report: Testimony on Torture.” Amnesty International. 1985. https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/eur440231985en.pdf ; Multiple Authors. Mehdi Zana and the Struggle for Kurdish Ethnic Identity in Turkey. Chapter 11. 24 July 2014. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137428684

22 Ibid, n. 24.

23 Daily Sabah. “Turkey’s Notorious Diyarbakır Prison to Be Converted into Museum.” Daily Sabah. 23 October 2022. https://www.dailysabah.com/turkey/turkiyes-notorious-diyarbakir-prison-to-be-converted-into-museum/news ;  KurdPress. “Turkey’s Infamous Diyarbakır Prison Empties for Museum Makeover.” KurdPress 24 October 2022. https://en.kurdpress.com/news/3029/Turkey-s-infamous-Diyarbakir-prison-empties-for-museum-makeover

24 Human Rights Watch. “Restrictions on the Use of the Kurdish Language.” Human Rights Watch. 1997. https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/turkey/turkey993-08.htm

25 Amnesty International.  “Turkey: prisoner of conscience / medical concern: Mehdi Zana” Amnesty International Report EUR 44/040/1994. Amnesty International. 20 May 1994. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur44/040/1994/en/ ; Amnesty International.  “Turkey: prisoner of conscience / medical concern: Mehdi Zana” Amnesty International Report EUR 44/040/1994. Amnesty International. 20 May 1994. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur44/040/1994/en/

26 European Court of Human Rights. CASE OF MEHDI ZANA v. TURKEY. ECHR. 2 March 2001. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-59335%22]}

27 DPpedia. People’s Labour Party (Turkey). DPpedia. Accessed August 6, 2024. https://dbpedia.org/page/People’s_Labour_Party_(Turkey)

28 Rudaw. “Population of Turkey’s Kurdish southeast over 17 million.” Rudaw. 2 February 2024 ;  Statistics vary and are mainly published on state owned media, but there is a consensus among all sources that the Kurdish birthrate in the southeast is relatively higher.

29 Amnesty International USA. “Mass Graves and State Silence in Turkey.” 15 March 2011. https://www.amnestyusa.org/blog/mass-graves-and-state-silence-in-turkey/ ; Bianet. “1,469 Bodies in 114 Mass Graves, More to Come.” Bianet. 23 February 2011.

30 Reuters. “Ankara Blast Echoes Past Attacks in Turkey.” Reuters. 1 October 2023. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/ankara-blast-echoes-past-attacks-turkey-2023-10-01/

31 Human Rights Foundation. “Turkey’s Failed Policy To Aid The Forcibly Displaced In The Southeast.” Human Rights Watch.. June 1996. https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/Turkey2.htm#:~:text=Some%202%2C685%20villages%20and%20hamlets,of%20an%20independent%20Kurdish%20state

32 Ibid.

33 UK Government. “Country policy and information note: Kurds, Turkey, October 2023 (accessible).” UK Government. Updated 9 August 2024. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/turkey-country-policy-and-information-notes/country-policy-and-information-note-kurds-turkey-october-2023-accessible#:~:text=In%201984%2C%20the%20PKK%20carried,1%20to%203%20million%20people

34 Ibid n. 36.

35 International Crisis Group. “Türkiye’s PKK Conflict: A Visual Explainer.” International Crisis Group. Last Updated 21 July 2024. https://www.crisisgroup.org/content/turkiyes-pkk-conflict-visual-explainer

36 Human Rights Watch. “Turkey Human Rights Development: Burned Out.” Human Rights Watch. Accessed July 10 2024. https://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/turkey/Turkey1002-03.htm

37 Amnesty International. “Turkey: Disappearance: Mehmet Gürkan (generally known as Mustafa Gürkan).”. Amnesty International. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur44/101/1994/en/

38 Ron, James. Weapons Transfers and Violations of the Laws of War in Turkey. Human Rights Watch Arms Project,  p 120. November 1995. https://books.google.com/books?id=b99dfVMJNRMC&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=lice+1993+turkey&source=bl&ots=8OBqaFALe-&sig=E817fkgD-5ztNrLrS5CLxgYXGRw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=g3ZmUqSYG6ukyAGe3IDgDg&ved=0CEUQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=lice%201993%20turkey&f=false

39 U.S. Department of State. “2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Turkey.” U.S. Department of State. 2020. https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/turkey/ ; United Nations Human Rights Officer of the High Commissioner. “Turkey: UN report details extensive human rights violations during protracted state of emergency.” ONHCR. 20 March 2018. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2018/03/turkey-un-report-details-extensive-human-rights-violations-during-protracted

40 Ibid n. 46.

41 Bianet. “New confessions about 1993 Lice massacre on parliamentary agenda.” Bianet. 1 September 2021. https://bianet.org/haber/new-confessions-about-1993-lice-massacre-on-parliamentary-agenda-249573#google_vignette

42 World Organization Against Torture. “How Turkey weaponizes counter-terrorism legislation against human rights defenders.” OMCT SOS- Torture Network. 13 June 2022. https://www.omct.org/en/resources/reports/turkey-the-instrumentalization-of-the-counter-terrorism-legislation-and-policies-and-their-impact-on-hrds

43 Ibid fn. 41.

44 Al Jazeera. “Turkey’s Failed Coup Attempt: All You Need to Know.” Al Jazeera. 15 July 2017. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/7/15/turkeys-failed-coup-attempt-all-you-need-to-know

45 Bilginsoy, Zeynep. “How Turkey’s failed coup unfolded, hour by hour.” AP News. 14 July 2017.

46 Amnesty International. “Weaponizing Counter-Terrorism.” Amnesty International. 21 June, 2021. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/06/weaponizing-counter-terrorism/

47 Kurdistan 24. “Turkey Shutters Kurdish Language Institute.” Kurdistan 24. 31 December 2016.  https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/10563-Turkey-shutters-Kurdish-language-institute

48 Human Rights Association (İHD). “Human Rights Defender in An Iron Cage: The Anti-Terrorism Law in Turkey.” İHD. 2022 January, p 2. https://ihd.org.tr/en/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/OzturkTurkdogan_ATL-Report_OMCT_EN.pdf

49 Zeldin, Wendy. “Turkey: Recent Developments in National and Public Security Law.” Law Library Library of Congress. November 2015. https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llglrd/2016295694/2016295694.pdf

50 Human Rights Watch. “Turkey: Pre-Election Crackdown on Kurds.” Human Rights Watch. 25 April, 2023. https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/04/25/turkey-pre-election-crackdown-kurds

51 Reuters. “Turkey arrests pro-Kurdish mayor two months after election.” Reuters. 3 June, 2024. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkey-arrests-pro-kurdish-mayor-two-months-after-election-2024-06-03/

52 Democratic Party of Turkey. “Our Party.” Democratic Party of Turkey. Accessed July 8, 2024. https://www.demparti.org.tr/en/our-party/17736/

53  For further information on the absence of PKK links to the DEM and the HDP, see the section under Political Isolation of Pro-Kurdish Democratic Parties: The People’s Democratic Party Efforts on page 10.

70 Ibid.