Turkish Education Ministry dismisses Kurdish ethnicity of Diyarbakır, says residents speak Azeri

Turkey's Education Ministry has completely dismissed the Kurdish ethnicity of southeastern Diyarbakır in a booklet it created for local students and said that the language residents spoke resembled Azeri Turkish. The pamphlet also presented the traditional Kurdish spring celebration of Newroz as "Nevruz," a whitewashed spelling, and claimed that the festival was about clicking eggs together and distributing food.

Friday March 19 2021 02:22 pm

Duvar English

Turkey's Education Ministry has created a controversial booklet about southeastern Diyarbakır where it entirely dismissed the city's Kurdish heritage and said that the local language resembled Azeri Turkish.

The booklet named "Our city Diyarbakır" didn't mention the Kurdish population either, despite their numbering thousands, and falsely attributed the province's multilingualism to locals speaking the Azeri Turkish dialect.

The ministry sent the 214-page-long booklet to elementary schools of Diyarbakır's 17 districts for teachers to hold lectures on it to students.

The booklet also presented the traditional Kurdish spring celebration of Newroz as "Nevruz," a whitewashed spelling, and claimed that the festival was about clicking eggs together and distributing food.

It also included "sexual abuse" as of the "risks" that one can encounter in the city. As much as the city offers opportunities, it also includes some risks. "Natural disasters, violence, drug addiction, traffic accidents and sexual abuse are some of the risks that can be encountered in the city," the booklet said in its section named "Risks of the city."

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been carrying out antagonizing rhetoric about Turkey's Kurdish community since the end of the Kurdish-Turkish peace process in 2015, with the judiciary dubbing any ties to the Kurdish political movement, culture or even language a criminal element.

Most recently, Turkey's Court of Cassation moved to shut down the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) and sought to ban 687 Kurdish politicians from politics.