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Recognition of linguistic rights?


Auteur :
Éditeur : KHRP Date & Lieu : 2005, London
Préface : Pages : 44
Traduction : ISBN : 1-900175932
Langue : AnglaisFormat : 148x210 mm
Thème : Politique

Présentation
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Recognition of linguistic rights?

Recognition of linguistic rights?

This report presents the findings of a fact-finding mission to Turkey sent by Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP) and the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (BHRC) in July 2005 to investigate the current status of protection for linguistic rights. The mission held numerous interviews including with representatives of human rights organisations, media, bar associations, political parties, unions and organisers of linguistic courses.

The mission investigated the practical implementation of linguistic rights and mother tongue legislation enacted by the Turkish government in an effort to meet EU pre-accession criteria. The mission examined the efficacy of the new language courses in Kurdish, as well as assessing overall linguistic freedom and the progress of court cases against high profile unions.

The mission found that despite claims by the Turkish Government that reforms now allowed for linguistic freedom, the actual implementation of these reforms was scattered and ineffectual in practice. Other laws were often used to thwart the limited progress made by liberal reforms. Some of the new legislation was found to be actually more restrictive in practice than previous legislation. Overall, linguistic rights are still severely limited in Turkey, and the expression and use of these rights often invites scrutiny, suspicion and legal harassment from the authorities.

Kerim Yildiz
Executive Director, KHRP

Mark Muller
Vice-Chair, BHRC

Kariane Westrheim
Chair, EUTCC


For most citizens of the world, the right to speak and write in their mother tongue, the language of their parents and forefathers is a commonly accepted right. For the Kurds of Turkey, however, this is a right that has long been denied, and for which they have been persecuted for decades. The ability to speak in Kurdish was only recently granted, and is still significantly limited in practice.

The main concentration of Kurds is in the mountains of the Zagros range where Iran, Iraq and Turkey meet. The Kurds are descendants of Indo-European tribes who settled among the aboriginal inhabitants of the Zagros Mountains in various epochs, but most probably during the second millennium BC. This region has been referred to as ‘Kurdistan’ since the Turkish Saljuk Prince Saandjar created a province by that name in the twelfth century.

This region was most recently carved into four political boundaries in the aftermath of World War One into the nation-states of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. The Kurds form potent minorities in each of these countries, and as a result, have faced persecution and discrimination in much of the region. In particular, Turkey views the expression of minorities to be a threat to the integrity of the nation-state and Turkish identity, and as a result has systematically repressed Kurdish identities since the founding of the State.




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