BRIEFING PAPER

The struggle for Kurdish language rights in Turkey By Desmond Fernandes

Published by PEACE IN KURDISTAN CAMPAIGN

February 2011

Peace in Kurdistan Campaign Campaign for a political solution of the Kurdish Question Email: estella24@tiscali.co.uk Tel: 020 7272 4131 or 020 7586 5892 Patrons: Lord Avebury, Lord Rea, Lord Dholakia, Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, Jean Lambert MEP, Alyn Smith MEP, Hywel Williams MP, Elfyn Llwyd MP, John Austin, Gareth Peirce, Julie Christie, Noam Chomsky, Edward Albee, Margaret Owen OBE, Mark Thomas, Bairbre de Brn MEP

PEACE IN KURDISTAN CAMPAIGN BRIEFING PAPER The struggle for Kurdish language rights in Turkey By Desmond Fernandes i

I. Background
The Kurdish Language Rights campaign has intensified in recent months as it has become apparent that the Justice and Development Party's (AKP's) 'Kurdish Opening'ii initiative has singularly failed to practically address key Kurdish linguistic, cultural and political 'human rights' concerns. Historically, since the emergence of the Turkish republic, Kurds as with 'Others' - have been subjected to intense oppression as genocidal policies and practices have been implemented (Fernandes 1998, 2007, 2010a, 2010b, 2010c). Linguistic genocide has accompanied other forms of cultural, political and physical genocide and targeting.iii Genocidal techniques have included massacre; rape; 'ethnic cleansing'; mass destruction and/or forced evacuation of over 3 million people from over 3,000 settlements during the 1990's alone; 'disappearances' of thousands of Kurds; 'slow death measures', forced assimilationiv and 'mental harm' (Fernandes 1998, 2007, 2010a; Skutnabb-Kangas and Fernandes 2008). The UK Parliamentary Human Rights Group (1993: 28), for example, after a delegation to the southeast in 1993, concluded that the depopulation of the Kurdish region is, we believe, part of a deliberate strategy aimed not merely at eliminating a few thousand [PKK]v guerrillas, but to extinguish the separate identity of the Kurdish people In Britain, as elsewhere, the question of Turkish Kurdistan is often presented as one of a reasonably democratic government seeking to cope with an intractable problem of terrorism. We believe that the reality is one of military [state] terrorists aiming to extinguish the identity of a people. Article 19 asserted in 1997 that there was ample evidence to indict the Turkish government of gross violations of human rights which constitute infringements of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, among other treaties to which Turkey is a party. Even during the early years of the 21st century, Turkish state terrorism has persisted. As recently as 2002, renowned linguistic human rights campaigner and academic Tove Skutnabb-Kangas confirmed that Turkey was still guilty of 'linguistic genocide' against Kurds and remained in breach of two articles of the United Nations Genocide Convention: In fact, education of Kurds in Turkey, both today and after the [proposed reform] law package is being implemented, is genocidal. It still fits two of the definitions of genocide in the UN International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (E793, 1948) ... Turkey tries to forcibly make Turks of Kurdish children through education, i.e. Turkey tries

to transfer the children linguistically and culturally to another group. This is genocide, according to the UN definition (Skutnabb-Kangas 2002). State Prosecutors, indeed , were briefed by the Ministry of the Interior in January, 2002, to bring charges of membership in a terrorist organisation, punishable with 12 years imprisonment, against any students or parents who lodge[d] petitions demanding optional Kurdish lessons. By 23rd January 2002, a total of 85 students and more than 30 parents ha[d] been imprisoned and over 1,000 people (among them some juveniles) detained [for] having demanded optional first language education in Kurdish On 14 January, the Turkish Security Forces issued a statement which clarified that projects as devious as an institute of Kurdish philology, ... a Kurdish encyclopedia and a Kurdish economic congress had to be abandoned (Aram 2002:1). Turkey's military leaders, in a scheduled National Security Council (MGK) meeting, ... described as 'subversive activity' a demand to allow Kurdish as a selective language course in Turkish schools (Mater 2002: 1). Yendinci Gundem also reported in 2002 that 12 people, 11 of whom were teachers and members of the teachers trade union Egitim-Sen, were tortured while being detained by police for the alleged 'crime' of learning Kurdish together.vi 'Pro-Kurdish' People's Democracy Party (HADEP) mayors continued to be persecuted: For example, the mayor of Hakkari was prosecuted for issuing a calendar in the Kurdish and English languages because it was a risk to the state The Kurdish language continue[d] to be banned in education and in the media (Robinson, quoted in Fernandes 2006: 35). In December 2007, the Kurdish mayor of Diyarbakir commented: There are 30 lawsuits filed against me, all of which are related to use of the Kurdish language (Asharq Al Awsat 2007: 1). Even by August 2005, it was apparent that local media groups who seek [to] broadcast programmes in languages and dialects other than Turkish - i.e. Kurdish - will [need to] present an affidavit stating that they will not broadcast programmes with the aim of teaching that language (BIA 2005: 1). In 2007, Ground Forces Commander General Ilker Basbug ... asserted that the right to mother-tongue education would threaten the nation state. This is not the first time the General Staff has interfered in this issue. In 2004, following a complaint by the army, the Ankara Governor's Office filed a suit to close the Trade Union for Education and Science Employers (Egitim-Sen) because it supported mother-tongue education in its statute. The case was only closed when the trade union changed its statute (Ustundag 2007: 1).

II. The situation today Linguistic Genocide persists and demands our solidarity with those targeted.
Despite the AKP's rhetoric of a 'Kurdish Opening' offering substantive linguistic/cultural/political rights reform, unacceptable targeting measures (which are in breach of international law) against 'pro-Kurdish' political parties (via political show trials, the closure of the Democratic Society Party [DTP], the targeting of the Peace and Democracy Party [BDP] and mass arrests) and Kurds from all walks of life persists: The current situation in the Kurdish provinces of Turkey is characterised by grave human rights violations, repression and war crimes committed by the Turkish military and special units of the Gendarmerie The situation in Turkeys prisons is [still] characterised by human rights infringements. Again and again, there are reports of torture and deaths [of political prisoners] in custody ... Unacceptable psychological warfare [is] being waged on the [Kurdish] population War crimes [by the state], such as the deployment of chemical weapons and the mutilation of the dead, are frequent occurrences In recent times, the rape rate has increased massively in Siirt Province and elsewhere Rape has been used systematically for years in several regions as a way of enforcing the states policy of assimilation and the political suppression of the Kurdish population (Report of the Human Rights Delegation from Brussels, Berlin, North Rhine-Westphalia and Hamburg to Turkey,15 October-25 October 2010, by Martin Dolzer). Linguistic genocide amongst other forms of genocide - continues to, undoubtedly, be perpetrated by the state against Kurds.vii Initiatives promoting basic Kurdish language rights are still scandalously criminalised and treated as if they constitute actions promoting 'terrorism'. As vice chairman of Turkey's largest human rights group, the Human Rights Association (IHD) and chair of its Diyarbakir Branch, Muharrem Erbey, Attorney at Law has noted (and one must bear in mind that for his distinguished human rights work in Turkey, he is currently undergoing a show trial alongside 151 'others' in the so-called 'KCK' trial):viii Practices in Turkey reject multi-culturalism and multi-linguism and every passing day, bans are given legitimacy Along with the EU process, political representatives in our country continuously have been saying that many legislative amendments have taken place; however, in recent years, almost everyday, rights have been stepped on. Speaking the Kurdish language, reading a Kurdish paper, publishing a Kurdish paper, news in Kurdish are practices that are continuously curbed We also know it very well that dismissal of students from universities, their dormitories as well as the prevention of Kurdish papers into prisons, are again stemming from the [targeting of the] Kurdish language. We consider it a severe human right violation that access to information is curbed, and demand that the restrictions on the Kurdish language be immediately eliminated; thereby, requirements stemming from being a democratic country be fulfilled (Erbey 2008: 1). According to UNESCO: The most important thing that can be done to keep a language from disappearing is to create favourable conditions for its speakers to speak the language and teach it to their children. This

often requires national policies that recognise and protect minority languages, education systems that promote mother-tongue instruction It is essential to create a social and political environment that encourages multilingualism and respect for minority languages so that speaking such a language is an asset rather than a liability" (quoted by Korkut 2009: 1). Yet, in Turkey, there is no such commitment to meaningfully promote and protect the Kurdish language. Indeed, it has been in response to the linguistic and cultural genocide that is taking place, that 'proKurdish' parties, Turkish-Kurdish-international civic/human rights organisations, linguistic human rights (LHR) advocates,ix peace and conflict resolution groups, various academics and students have mobilised in support of a Kurdish language rights campaign. Kurdish politicians, for example, are pressing the Turkish government for constitutional reforms which will pave the way for education in Kurdish in Turkey's schools Kurdish students began boycotting schools in a one-week school's boycott campaign in September 2010 to protest at restrictions that were being imposed upon Kurdish optional instruction (ANF 2010: 1). The Movement for Research on the Kurdish Language, Development and Education (TZP- Kurd) supported the boycott call from 20-24 September. TZP- Kurd activists also presented petitions to Regional Education Boards demanding education rights in Kurdish in elementary schools and kindergartens (ANF 2010a: 1). The Democratic Society Congress (DTK), as part of its 'Draft submission for a democratic, autonomous Kurdistan' in 2011, has supported Kurdish linguistic rights in education and other spheres.x By the end of February 2011, 1.1 million signatures were presented to the Petition Commission of the Turkish Grand National Assembly two months after the DTK initiated a campaign on 'Education in the Mother Language' The campaign was supported by the Rights and Freedoms Party (HAKPAR), the Participatory Democracy Party (KADEP), the Human Rights Association (HD), the Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUMDER), the [teachers'] Education and Science Workers' Union (Eitim-Sen) and the Mevlana Culture Centre (MKM) DTK Co-Chair Tuluk ... emphasised that the petition was subsequently going to be forwarded to the European Union (EU), The European Commission, the United Nations and UNESCO (BIA News, 28 February 2011). The Initiative for Reforms in Education (ERG) in Turkey has actively supported an initiative for 'Bilingualism and Education in Turkey: Steps to be taken for Sustainable Solutions'. The Kurdish National Congress (KNK) has written to the Presidency of the European Union, the Presidency of the European Commission and the Secretary-General of the United Nations to highlight what amounts to crimes committed by the Turkish government and state officials in relation to the ban of Kurdish education and teaching (ANF 2011). The History Foundation of Turkey has appealed to the Turkish government to include a 'Secondary Education Kurdish Language and Literature Textbook' it has just produced for an elective course in the national curriculum for high schools. The book was drafted by six authors after a study carried out in 2009 found that the textbooks used in the Turkish education system were turning a blind [eye] to the multi-ethnic reality of the country. 'The policies of denial that have persisted for many years have also been reflected in these books. It is as if Kurds do not have a language or literature. That is why we aim to help solve the problems that emerge as a result of ignorance and misinformation with this textbook', said Grel

Tzn, the foundations coordinator for projects (Yilmaz 2010). The European Union-Turkey Civic Commission's 2010 conference resolution reiterate[d] its call to the State of Turkey and the European Union to develop and promote a strategic plan for mother tongue education (EUTCC 2010: 1). Protest actions were carried out after the court [in the so-called 'KCK trial'] referred to Kurdish as an 'unknown language' when the defendants insisted on presenting their defence speeches in their mother tongue (Ustundag 2010a: 1).

III. International solidarity

The need for international observers to visit the region and talk to trade unionists, NGOs and grass-roots organizations campaigning for language rights and to attend trials of those being targeted unjustly - is vital at a time when the following types of scandalous targeting actions by the Turkish state continue to take place:
Subtractive dominant-language medium education for Indigenous/tribal and minority (ITM) children can have harmful consequences: - socially, psychologically, economically, politically. - very serious mental harm: social dislocation, psychological, cognitive, linguistic and educational harm, and, partially through this, also economic, social and political marginalisation - often also serious physical harm, e.g. in residential schools, and as a long-term result of marginalisation - e.g. alcoholism, suicides, incest, violence, illnesses, short life-span. Our 2008 paper (Dunbar and Skutnabb-Kangas 2008) contains legal argumentation which shows that forcibly (i.e. when alternatives do not exist) educating ITM children in a dominant language in submersion and even early-exit transitional programmes is at least sociologically and educationally genocide In many countries, states are still trying to kill languages through direct physical violence towards the speakers, which is often sanctioned by laws in the country. Turkey is a prominent example and Turkey would not be able to continue the atrocities without the unconditional US military and diplomatic support, just as the Kurdish predicament has to be seen historically as a partial result of British (and later post-colonial and Cold War) machination In Turkish Kurdistan, in Burma (e.g. the Karen), in Sri Lanka (e.g. the Tamils), in China (e.g. the Uyghurs, the Tibetans, etc), and other countries, people, including children, are imprisoned, tortured, beaten up or killed, for demanding simple basic linguistic human rights. In all these contexts, OF COURSE, also because they are demanding other human rights. But demanding the right to learn and maintain their languages and cultures, IN ADDITION to learning an/the official language, a central demand for all the groups, is seen as a crime (Skutnabb-Kangas 2010: 14, 15). In September 2009, according to the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (2011: 25), the Higher Educational Council rejected an application to open a Department of Kurdish Studies and Kurdish Language and Literature at the University of Diyarbakir, on the grounds that the application introduced by the local Bar Association had been made by a body that supported terrorism. On February 25, 2010, Diyarbakr Heavy Penal Court No. 4 convicted three ... Dicle University students to sentences ranging from six years and three months to seven years and six months in prison for their roles in a boycott of classes on October 15, 2008, and in a sit-in at which they read out a public statement demanding mother tongue (Kurdish language) education (Human Rights Watch 2010b: 1). June 2010: BDP rnak MP Kaplan described the 'Action Plan' sent to universities by the Council of Higher Education as a 'Five-Year Medium-Term Plan' aimed at systematically arresting and detaining

Kurdish university students. 'This action plan is a planned offensive by the government against Kurdish university students' ... Kaplan brought the 'Action Plan for Separatist Activities' prepared by the Council of Higher Education (YK) to the [notice of] parliament. The plan was sent to the universities by YK on 17 March [2010] ... 'This confidential action plan is being applied against Kurdish university students every year ... The plan suggests watching students who are involved in 'separatist' activities such as attending Newroz [New Year] celebrations or requesting education in Kurdish as their mother tongue ... The investigation and monitoring reports about the students should be sent to the deanery every four months. Recent attacks against Kurdish students in Mula, Ankara, Manisa, Rize, Tokat and Instanbul were based on these directives. It even gets worse since the document is meant to be a Five-Year Medium-Term Plan. This is a plan to systematize arrests and detentions of Kurdish students', Kaplan indicated (Pelek 2010b: 1). President Abdullah Gl disapproved of the [school] boycott [relating to requests for mother tongue education] Abdullah Karahan, President of the Eitim-Sen [teachers union] Diyarbakr Branch ... talked ... about the school boycott. He criticised the circular sent out by the National Education Ministry which ordered to register the names of the students who are absent during the boycott (Pelek 2010a). There are constitutional restrictions on the use of minority languages in education Under Article 3, Turkish is the language as opposed to the ofcial language of the state. What makes this provision problematic is its restrictive interpretation by the Turkish courts The Constitution does not acknowledge the presence of minority languages (The Minority Rights Group 2007: 15). 9 November 2010: The Turkish State Council decided to remove Kurdish names of the villages in Diyarbakr from the road signs. Kurdish names of the villages and towns were added to road signs with the decision of Diyarbakir Cty Council [in 2009]. But the Diyarbakir directorate objected to the decision and appealed to the State Council (ANF 2010c: 1). 23rd January 2011: Police have removed a quadrilingual sign from the local offices of the pro-Kurdish BDP in Midyat, following a court decision Law enforcement officers moved to take down the sign, which was written in Turkish, Kurdish, Syriac, and the Arabic Qultu dialect of the local Mhallami community, after the local criminal court of peace in the southeastern province of Mardin ruled that it violated the Political Parties Law(Dogan News Agency 2011: 1). BDP MP for Batman, Bengi Yldz, attended the opening ceremony of the BDP Office in Mulas Milas district on 11th January 2009 and greeted people in Kurdish. The prosecution opened an investigation against [him] and 16 others for 'praising crime and criminals' and 'violating the law 2820 on political parties by speaking in Kurdish'. The prosecution sent an application to the Parliament for the removal of Bengis immunity to be able to open the investigation against him for this 'crime' (Antenna-Tr 2010: 1). 152 Kurdish politicians, human rights defenders, lawyers and representatives of non-governmental organizations are currently facing a KCK show trial where they are unable at present to formally submit their defence in Kurdish (Fernandes 2010a). The Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) deputy parliamentary group chairman, in November 2010, criticized the treatment of Kurdish as an unknown language by the Diyarbakr 6th High Criminal Court in the ongoing trial .... The judges even turned off the microphones of the defendants who spoke Kurdish and said 'the defendant spoke in an unknown language' for the record

(ANF 2010: 1). In the 'MKLP' show trial in December 2010, too, the 23 defendants standing trial [were] not allowed to present their defence in Kurdish as their mother tongue (Ustundag 2010b: 1). 19 January 2011: The 17th hearing of the trial regarding the Democratic Confederation of Kurdistan (KCK) Turkish Assembly was held Again, the request for a defence in Kurdish as the mother tongue of the 151 defendants was dismissed. The defendants who attempted to speak in Kurdish were silenced by the court by shutting off the microphones, saying that 'the defendants made their defence in a language supposed to be Kurdish'" (Soylemez 2011: 1). Conversation recorded during meetings between the British MP Jeremy Corbyn and the AKP Party during a visit to Turkey in October 2007: Corbyn: Will you add the Kurdish language into the [newly proposed civilian] constitution as an educational right and provision? Reply: Is there a language called Kurdish? Its not a real language (Fernandes 2007). Using languages other than Turkish in Parliament is prohibited, the legislatures speaker [noted], implicitly warning pro-Kurdish deputies to stop using Kurdish in the hall if they do not want to face the consequences (Hurriyet, 20 December 2010).. 15 December 2010: Sur municipality in Diyarbakr delivered 750 dumpsters marked in Kurdish to its 42 villages. The Sur Municipality had written on the garbage dumpsters 'aredariya Sur', which means 'Sur Municipality', in Kurdish. Yesterday, 27 other trash dumpsters in Kurtalan district of Siirt were released on parole with the condition that the Kurdish writing on them be removed. The Kurtalan Penal Court of Peace immediately had seized the dumpsters for violating the 'Law on Revolution' which bans the display of any language other than Turkish in public (DIHA News Agency, 15 December 2010). The respected academic smail Beikci, as of November 2010, was once again facing a 7.5 year prison sentence. His alleged 'crime?' Academically writing about the Kurds' moral and legal right to selfdetermination and using the Kurdish letter 'Q' in his article: The Turkish prosecutor believes that [his] use of letters from the Kurdish alphabet is separatist propaganda Beiki published the article ... in the Journal of Law and Society, where he used the letter 'Q'. The Turkish prosecutor ... believes that the use of the letter 'Q' represents Kurdish separatist propaganda and a demand for the Kurdish alphabet. The prosecutor asked that Beiki and the editor in chief of the magazine ... will be sentenced according to the Turkish anti-terror law (Lorin and Alasor 2010: 1). The AKP has continued racist and fascist policies towards the Kurdish people throughout the country, inciting working people against the Kurdish people. For months, this policy has been used to place the Kurdish people under siege, announcing the Kurdish people to be 'terrorist' and making it a crime for them to put forward their demands. For months, the AKP has not only not sought to resolve the Kurdish issue, it has not listened to their demands but has attacked, killed and sought to silence the Kurdish people. In recent days, the AKP has announced in the course of the 'language debates' that 'there will definitely not be education in the native language', thus openly defending bans on the Kurdish language and announcing the

continuation of the assimilation policy Singing Kurdish songs on TV can still be punished with imprisonment and fines - International Platform Against Isolation, 18 January 2011. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejected Kurdish politicians demands for education in the mother language [He] said Turkish is the only language of education in Turkey ... Speaking in a meeting with local party officials Erdogan said no to education in Kurdish. He said Turkish is the only language in Turkey's education system (ANF 2010b: 1).

10

IV. Notes

11

Desmond Fernandes is a former Senior Lecturer (De Montfort University, Bedford) and is the author of a number of books and articles on the Kurdish genocide in Turkey. He has also written extensively on issues relating to 'deep politics', psychological warfare, the militarisation of universities and the criminalisation of refugees, asylum seekers and diasporic communities in the UK. ii As Human Rights Watch (2010b: 1) has observed: In 2009, the Turkish government indicated that it was committed to addressing the failures of the past The government named the project 'the democratic opening', though it also became known in the press as the 'Kurdish opening' The government ... lifted [some] restrictions on broadcasting in Kurdish [Then], in December 2009, ... the Constitutional Court banned the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) on grounds that it promoted separatism. Over the following months there were no developments indicating that the government was pursuing an 'opening' and there were also some serious setbacks to the process In July 2010, the government, after national and international protests over the matter, ended the prosecution of children in adult courts and limited the application of the most serious terrorism laws to child demonstrators. Yet by August 2010, more than a year after the interior minister had first promised a 'democratic opening', the government had taken no other concrete steps to implement its plan. iii Linguistic genocide is "'prohibiting the use of the language of the group in daily intercourse or in schools, or the printing and circulation of publications in the language of the group'. This was how linguistic genocide was defined in Article III(1) of the final draft of what became the [Genocide] Convention (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000: 1). Although this article was voted down for questionable political reasons when the Convention was finally accepted,. those states then members of the UN were in agreement that this was how the phenomenon could be defined (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000: 1). iv Policies of assimilation - aimed at eradication of indigenous/minority education - which linguistically, often also culturally result in transference to the majority group, can also be held to be genocidal, according to articles II(e) and II(b) in the present convention (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000: 1) and Lemkin (Docker 2004: 13). v Kurdistan Workers Party. vi The Mardin branch of Egitim-Sen said in a written statement that our colleagues were subjected to various methods of torture; they were sprayed with high-pressure water, they had plastic bags pulled over their heads, they were forced to sing marching songs and to do the goose-step, they were brutally beaten, left for 3 days without food or water, they were stripped naked, and had their testicles crushed (quoted in Fernandes 2006: 11). vii Those making the 'genocide' charge (as it relates to the ongoing targeting of Kurds that is taking place) include the following (this is only a partial list): The Democratic Society Congress (DTK), the detainees in the so-called 'KCK' trial; the Ankara Initiative for Freedom of Thought, the Anadolu Culture and Research Association, the Effort, Peace and Democracy Party, the Modern Lawyers Association - Ankara Branch, the Freedom in the Revolutionary Way, the Federation of Democratic Rights, the Revolutionary 78's Federation, the Proletarian Movement Party, the Socialist Party of the Oppressed, the Lever, Struggle Solidarity and Socialist Democracy Party, the Socialist Party of Laborers, the Socialist Future Party Initiative, the 78's Initiative and the Partisan, Social Freedom Party, Nilufer Koc (VicePresident of the Kurdistan National Congress), Desmond Fernandes, Saleh Mamon, Eddie DSa, Felix Padel, Sarbjit Johal (Centre Co-ordinator, London Development Education Centre), Agrotosh Mookerjee, Gautam Kumar Bandopadhyay, Ningreichon Tungshang, Susana Barria (Intercultural Resources), Ashok Chowdhury and Mamata Dash (National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers, New Delhi), Amit Bhaduri (Professor, Council for Social Development, New Delhi), Rabin Chakraborty, Asit Das, Shibayan Raha (Students for Free Tibet, New Delhi), James Pochury, Arun Kumar (Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi), South Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy, Dunu Roy (Hazard Centre, New Delhi), Sushant Panigrahy (Delhi Forum), Madhuresh Kumar (National Alliance of People's Movements, New Delhi), Rajendra Ravi (National Alliance of People's Movements, New Delhi), Bhupinder Singh Rawat, Vimal Bhai, Rohan Dominic Mathews (Intercultural Resources, New Delhi), Shrikanth (Human Rights Forum, Hyderabad), Sunita Rani and Ashok Sharma (Delhi Forum). viii His arrest, notes Human Rights Watch (2010: 1), raises serious concerns that he was targeted because of his legitimate work on human and minority rights. English PEN (2010: 1) share[s] concerns of other human rights observers that Muharrem Erbey's arrest appears to be linked to his human rights advocacy. ix According to Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas (1995: 488, 489): Linguistic Human Rights (LHR's) can ... be summarised as follows: Observing LHR's implies at an individual level that everyone can identify positively with their mother tongue(s), and have that identification respected by others, irrespective of whether their mother tongue is a minority language or a majority language It means the right to learn the mother tongue(s), including at least basic education through the medium of the mother tongue, and the right to use it in many (official) contexts. It means the right to learn at least one of the official languages in one's country of residence. It should therefore be normal that teachers of minority children are bilingual. Restrictions on these rights may be considered linguistic wrongs, an infringement of fundamental LHR's. Observing LHR's implies at a collective level, the right of minority groups to exist, i.e. the nght to be 'different' ... It implies the right of minorities to use [and] develop their language and to establish and maintain schools and other training and educational institutions, with control over the curriculum, and with teaching through the medium of their own languages. It also involves guarantees of representation in the political affairs of the state, and the granting of autonomy to administer matters internal to the groups, at least in the fields of

culture, education, religion, information, and social affairs, with the financial means, through taxation or grants, to fulfil these functions Rights should be enforceable, which presupposes financial resources, and appropriate democratic, constitutional, and legal procedures. Restrictions on these rights may also be considered linguistic wrongs, an infringement of fundamental LHR's. This enumeration of LHR's builds on principles that should be observed when forming language policy in any state. They represent a norm, a standard that states should aspire to, which can be a significant reference point in struggles to influence language policy and wrest rights from an unwilling state. A human rights approach in language education involves the fostering of attitudes - at the local, national and supranational levels - and the elaboration and maintenance of a structure within which the individual and the group do not suffer from oppression, specifically linguistic oppression. x Its recommendation is to recognise that democratic autonomy is the embodied expression of our previously suggested solution projects for the democratisation of Turkey [It] means that the Kurdish people will no longer be forced to live as a non-status people under an administration that threatens their existence All the cultural, ethnic, gender, faith communities should be able to be organised autonomously and authentically. These peoples (the Assyrian-Chaldean, Arabs, Armenians, Azeris) and faith groups like Ezidi-Alevi, should be given priority to represent themselves within the Democratic Autonomy. This is a requirement of moral and political societies (Democratic Society Congress 2011: 5, 6, 7).

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