Turkey
Turkey’s new government adopted an exclusionary, secular, ethnic-based conception of Turkish citizenship and denied that authenticity of Kurdish claims to ethnic distinctness. By the enforcement of laws such as Article 57 of the Turkish Constitution of 1982 which outlaws “any activity harmful to national unity and territorial integrity of the Turkish Republic”, Kurdish civic rights can be constrained within the context of a Constitution guaranteeing equality without acknowledging them as a distinct group. Equal citizenship rights were enshrined in Turkey’s 1920 Provisional Constitution. Article 8 asserted that the country was composed of both Turks and Kurds but under the law they would treated as common citizens. However, the 1923 formation of the Republic of Turkey marked the beginning of continuing period of reduced civic rights for Kurds. The Caliphate was abolished a year later as well as all public expressions and institutions of Kurdish identity. Kurdish madrassas, newspapers, religious fraternal organizations, and associations were shut down.
To give an example of the early republican government's attitude towards the citizenship rights of Kurds, Law No. 1850 was introduced after popular revolts, giving after-the-fact legal sanction to civilians and military personnel who killed Kurds during the revolt.
Kurdish regions were placed under martial law and the use of the Kurdish language, dress, folklore, and names prohibited.
Civic rights were temporarily improved with the Turkish Constitution of 1961 which allowed freedom of expression, the press, and association for Kurds. The 1964 Political Parties Act criminalized Kurdish political parties and the acknowledgment of the existence of different languages and races in Turkey. The 1972 Law of Association further restricted rights to association and political organization.
In 1991, Law 2932 was repealed and the Kurdish language was allowed for informal speech and music but not for political or education purposes or in the mass media. The same year a new Anti-Terror bill was passed which defined terrorism as “any kind of action with the aim of changing characteristics of the Republic” essentially criminalizing Kurdish political activism and many basic forms of expression. In 2004 laws were further liberalized allowing Kurdish-language broadcasts and other restrictions, including the giving of Kurdish names to infants have been removed.
Read more about this topic: Kurdish Nationalism
Famous quotes containing the word turkey:
“In the land of turkeys in turkey weather
At the base of the statue, we go round and round.
What a beautiful history, beautiful surprise!
Monsieur is on horseback. The horse is covered with mice.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“You can make as good a design out of an American turkey as a Japanese out of his native stork.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“It has been an unchallengeable American doctrine that cranberry sauce, a pink goo with overtones of sugared tomatoes, is a delectable necessity of the Thanksgiving board and that turkey is uneatable without it.... There are some things in every country that you must be born to endure; and another hundred years of general satisfaction with Americans and America could not reconcile this expatriate to cranberry sauce, peanut butter, and drum majorettes.”
—Alistair Cooke (b. 1908)