Turkey: Kurdish Cultural and Research Foundation on Trial

[english at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl]

           The case against Kurdish Cultural and Research Foundation
   
  _________________________________________________________________
  
 By Selin Kalman / Turkish Daily News
 
Istanbul- The trial of the chairman and deputy chairman of the Kurdish
Cultural and Research Foundation (Kurt-Kav) opened Thursday in
Istanbul's Fifth Public Security Court. Chairman Yilmaz Camlibel and
Deputy Chairman Mehmet Celal Baykara have been charged with opening
language courses in Kurdish without permission. If convicted, the two
men could face prison sentences ranging from six months to two years.

The part of the hearing was given over to listening to the statements
of Camlibel and Baykara. In his statement the latter said that the
main objective of their foundation is to engage in scientific and
academic research on Kurdish language, history and culture. He added
that the course was very useful for improving the quality of
translations from Kurdish to Turkish and the Istanbul State Security
Court (DGM) had even asked for their assistance in translating.

Following Baykara's statement, Camlibel told the court, "There are 20
million Kurds living in Turkey and all Kurdish citizens carry out
their duties to the state in education and by going into the army. We
applied to the Ministry of Education to open a Kurdish language course
in accordance with ministry norms. This request has been turned down
on the basis of the Law 2923 which is the educational section of the
Foreign Languages Law.

Kurt-Kav officials opened a case against the Ministry of Education for
turning down their request; however, the law was passed by the
Military Council following the coup of 1980 and according to the 1982
Constitution, no laws passed during that time can be suspended.

"According to Law 2923, in accordance with the opinion of the National
Security Council, in Turkey people can only open courses in English,
French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Arabic and
Japanese. No other language is permitted. But there are some state
institutions like universities in which there are courses and
education in languages beside these nine. Kurdish is an important
language in Turkey. Sometimes the DGM receives cassettes and texts in
Kurdish and they send them to our course to translate because Turkish
prosecutors have trouble with Kurdish. Moreover a Kurdish child wants
to learn his own language and people from other nations may wish to
have Kurdish courses."

Kurt-Kav has appealed the ministry prohibition to the Supreme Court.
If the answer is negative, they are expected to apply to the
International Human Rights Commission.

The judge has postponed the present trial until May 5, 1998.

-- 
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