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BDP plan to boycott schools draws criticism
The Kurdish Education and Language Movement (TZP) held a meeting in Diyarbakır in the last week of August at which it decided that all schools, including universities, should be boycotted in the first week of the new school year.
Remzi Azizoğlu, chairman of the Kurdish Language Association (Kurdi-Der), a TZP affiliate, said in Diyarbakır that Kurds have for many years been demanding that they be given the right to be educated in their mother tongue.
“We say, if you won’t solve this problem, then we will take the initiative to do so. We decided on this as part of democratic autonomy,” he told Today’s Zaman. Democratic autonomy envisages greater powers being granted to regional governments, including establishing local parliaments in the regions and having a separate flag. Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), first suggested the idea, which has gained the support of the BDP.
İbrahim Güçlü, a prominent Kurdish leader, said education in one’s mother tongue is a basic human right but added that pushing for this right by using children is wrong.
“The suggestion to stage a boycott was extensively discussed at the meeting. Some suggested that municipalities run by the BDP should use Kurdish and that BDP deputies should speak in Kurdish in Parliament but that children should not be included in this political issue. This idea did not gain much support,” he told Today’s Zaman.
He added that the call for a boycott of schools is strongly linked to the call to boycott the referendum.
“The BDP was unable to explain why the referendum should be boycotted, but in order to strengthen that call, it also suggested a boycott of schools,” Güçlü said and added that boycotting schools will likely gain little traction. The TZP decided to ask students and parents to submit petitions to school administrations seeking classes in Kurdish. They also demand Kurdish-speaking kindergartens and for courts to allow defense statements to be delivered in Kurdish. According to the TZP, businessmen will be urged to name their companies with Kurdish names and to have them written in Kurdish.
Abdurrahim Ay, deputy chairman of the Diyarbakır branch of the Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUM-DER), said that in principle they are not against any non-violent demonstrations seeking the right to education in Kurdish but adds that it is also important not to force anyone to participate in such demonstrations.
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