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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This report was written by KHRP Executive Director Kerim Yildiz and Georgina Fryer and edited by Emma Wethey and Rochelle Harris.
The Kurdish Human Rights Project gratefully acknowledges the financial support of:
Bishop’s Commission for MISEREOR (Germany), The John Merck Fund (USA), The Community Fund (UK), Joel Joffe Charitable Trust (UK), Ajahma Trust (UK), Allan and Nesta Ferguson Trust (UK), The Ruben and Elisabeth Rausing Trust (UK), The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Netherlands), The Bromley Trust (UK), Oakdale Trust (UK), ACAT Suisse - Action des Chretiens pour I’Abolition de la Torture (Switzerland), Oakdale Trust (UK), The Sycamore Charitable Trust (UK), The AB Charitable Trust, The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Netherlands), The Sycamore Charitable Trust (UK), The AB Charitable Trust (UK), The Jane Hodge Foundation (UK), The Avenue Charitable Trust (UK), Stichting Cizira Botan (Netherlands), UNISON (UK); Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (Finland); The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Netherlands); and the World Organisation Against Torture [OMCT] (Switzerland).
The Kurdish Human Rights Project
The Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP) is an independent, non-political, nongovernmental human rights organisation founded and based in London, England. KHRP is a registered charity and is committed to the promotion and protection of the human rights of all persons living within the Kurdish regions, irrespective of race, religion, sex, political persuasion or other belief or opinion. Its supporters include both Kurdish and non-Kurdish people.
Aims
- To promote awareness of the situation of the Kurds in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and elsewhere
- To bring an end to the violation of the rights of the Kurds in these countries
- To promote the protection of human rights of Kurdish people everywhere
Methods
- Monitoring legislation and its application
- Conducting investigations and producing reports on the human rights situation of Kurds in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and in the countries of the former Soviet Union by, amongst other methods, sending trial observers and engaging in fact-finding missions
- Using such reports to promote awareness of the plight of the Kurds on the part of committees established under human rights treaties to monitor compliance of states
- Using such reports to promote awareness of the plight of the Kurds on the part of the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, national parliamentary bodies and inter-governmental organisations including the United Nations
- Liaison with other independent human rights organisations working in the same field and co-operating with lawyers, journalists and others concerned with human rights
- Assisting individuals with their applications before the European Court of Human Rights
- Offering assistance to indigenous human rights groups and lawyers in the form of advice and training seminars on international human rights mechanisms
Foreword
by Robert Dunbar
Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Glasgow
The denial of cultural and linguistic rights has many consequences, but the most immediate and painful are those felt by the individual who belongs to a cultural or linguistic minority. Such an individual is forced by such policies to live a diminished and often a materially disadvantaged life. The individual is often excluded by such policies from the same basic public services, as well as educational, employment and other opportunities that members of the majority enjoy. Quite simply, the individual is usually robbed by such policies of the same life chances that members of the majority enjoy.
These outcomes are most stark for members of minorities who have no or an inadequate command of the majority or State language. In such circumstances, the denial of public services through the minority language can have serious adverse consequences. They cannot, for example, count on receiving medical and other care in the language that they understand, with obvious adverse consequences for their health and well being. They cannot participate fully and effectively in the political process, with obvious adverse consequences for their rights as citizens. If they have to defend themselves or secure their rights in Court, they cannot participate effectively, with obvious adverse consequences in terms of basic procedural fairness and substantive outcomes. The huge weight of evidence from educationalists suggests that such persons encounter very serious difficulties in the education system—one which is operated in a language they do not understand—with obvious adverse consequences for their intellectual development and employment prospects. Indeed, the evidence now shows that such persons even have a more difficult time in acquiring the majority or State language than they might have had if they had received their early childhood education through the medium of their mother tongue.
Even where members of the minority do speak the majority or State language, they nonetheless are unable to develop their identity as fully and as effectively as members of the majority because they are denied access through the medium of their language and culture to many of the most important institutions that foster and develop such identity, such as schools, institutions of further and higher education, the media, and so forth. They are denied access to their own literatures, their own histories, to the ability to represent and interpret their world through their own eyes. In short, societies which deny cultural and linguistic rights send a clear message to minorities: they are not valued and accepted. As a result, they are diminished, marginalised and alienated.
As this report makes clear, this is the reality which millions of Kurds are condemned to suffer by virtue of the linguistic and cultural policies of the States in which they live. The grave consequences, in terms of access to justice, equality of opportunity and full human development are tragic and disgraceful. To the extent that such policies condemn members of minorities to restricted lives, to the status of outsiders in their own homes and villages and towns and cities, to the status of second class citizens within their own States, it can be no surprise that such policies lead to social discord and even violence. The lesson of the history of the treatment of linguistic and cultural minorities is surely that it is not the conferral of cultural and linguistic rights, but rather the denial of such rights, which threatens the integrity and stability and peace of States. Furthermore, the robbing of large numbers of citizens of the ability to fully develop their talents, skills and identities can only impoverish the societies in which they live, both directly—again, the denial of cultural and linguistic rights tends to ensure that “human capital” is insufficiently developed, meaning lower standards of living for members of the minority and less productive societies—and indirectly—the creativity and energy which diversity tends to foster is quashed. Finally, societies that deny cultural and linguistic rights also tend to deny other basic civil and political rights— societies that are threatened by different identities tend to feel threatened by different ideas and opinions.
Given the foregoing, why is it that States still pursue policies which deny minorities their cultural and linguistic rights? As this study clearly indicates, the denial of such rights to the Kurds is in large part a product of ideologies of nationalism and of the nation-State. It is both ironic and tragic that such ideologies owe much to European influences on the societies in which Kurds live, and that the older indigenous traditions of interculturalism, multilingualism and tolerance, which once dictated a much different approach to minority questions in the region, have been moved aside.
This irony and tragedy is heightened by the fact that Europe is slowly moving away from the ideologies of nationalism and of the nation-State, and this development, which is reflected in broader trends in international law, is also ably traced in this study. European integration, together with ever greater levels of interdependence, cross-border movements of goods, services, peoples and ideas, have forced us to reconsider older certainties. As a result, there is a growing realisation that the recognition of cultural and linguistic rights is not only intimately connected to broader human rights issues and with the dignity and integrity of the individual, but also that such recognition is the only basis for peace, stability and security within and between States. There is also a growing awareness that the sort of diversity which cultural and linguistic rights tends to foster is in itself valuable; that it creates more dynamic, open and interesting societies. Such ideas, and the legal norms which they inspire, are, as is demonstrated in this study, becoming ever more relevant for both the Kurds and the States in which they reside. A recognition of the cultural and linguistic rights of the Kurds would not only be in keeping with broader international developments, but would, as noted, in many ways be a return to deep roots in a region which is culturally and linguistically rich and vibrant.
I welcome this report, and I recommend it highly; in addition to being a very valuable storehouse of information, it will make an important contribution to the advancement of these ideas.
Robert Dunbar
Senior Lecturer in Law.
The School of Law,
The University of Glasgow
I – Introduction
The Kurds are believed to be descendents of Indo-European peoples who settled amongst tribes living in the Zagros mountain range around four thousand years ago. Although the term ‘Kurdistan’ has never designated a Kurdish state, it has been used to describe this geographical area since the Turkish Saljuk Prince Saandjar created a province with this name in the twelfth century. The majority of Kurds still live in this area, which covers southern Turkey, northern Iraq, western Iran and northern Syria. There are currently around 24 - 27 million Kurds living in the Middle East today. Although the four states have refused to ascertain the size of their Kurdish population, scholars estimate there are 13 million Kurds in Turkey, 4.2 million in Iraq, 5.7 million in Iran and just over 1 million in Syria. As such Kurds constitute about 23 per cent of Turkey’s population, 23 per cent of Iraq’s, 10 per cent of Iran’s and just over 6 per cent of Syria’s.1 There are smaller Kurdish populations in Lebanon, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the
Kurdish diaspora can be found in Europe, Canada and Australia.
The mountains have both protected Kurdish culture from external threat and have also prevented its unification. The Kurds do not share a single common language but speak a number of different dialects. Kermanji is spoken by most northern Kurds and Sorani is spoken by most Kurds in the southeast. Subdialects include Kirmanshahi, Leki, Gurani and Zaza. In spite of this they have cultivated a cultural identity over two thousand years, of which their language remains the most crucial aspect.
For the second time in under a century, the fate of the Kurds has been subordinated to the aspirations of states which stake geopolitical claims to the territories in which they live. In the aftermath of World War I Kurdistan was divided between the four nation-states of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. As a large minority in each, the Kurds were perceived as a threat to internal and external security as their distinct identity, marked chiefly by language, could provide the basis for separatist movements and therefore had to be extirpated. Policies targeting aspects of Kurdish culture, especially its language, immediately attained prominence amongst the measures adopted in pursuit of national unity. Not only did Kurdish culture and language become highly politicised objects of negotiation, invoked throughout the twentieth century by these Governments and Kurdish political leaders, but they retain a central role in the suppression of the Kurds to this day.
Eighty years on, the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq find themselves at the forefront of another defining period in European and Middle Eastern history. Turkey’s protection of the cultural and linguistic rights of its Kurdish population is essential for Turkey’s accession to the European Union; however, the Kurds in Turkey remain severely repressed, as do those in Iran and Syria. The Iraqi Kurds have been at the forefront of post-war negotiations which are restructuring Iraq as a federal state. In June 2004, the Iraq Interim Government was announced and on 28 June assumed full sovereignty for Iraq. In December 2004 the European Council will judge Turkey’s readiness for EU membership. It is therefore timely to evaluate the current status of the Kurds’ cultural and linguistic rights in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
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