KURDISH COMMUNITY OF ARMENIA MAD ABOUT PM ERDOGAN’S SPEECH

Azg/am
9 Oct 04

“We shall never be surprised seeing Turkey as an EU member as powerful
international unions and organizations express the interests of super
powers. We raise our voice in order to put an end to all injustice
done to the Kurdish people. Turkey has to consider the claims of a
nation counting 20 million.

The issues of language and culture preserving as well as securing
Kurds’ rights were key issues of Abdullah Ojalan and the party he
led”, Kniaz Hasanov, member of the Council of Minorities of Armenia
and representative of “Kurdistan” committee, says.

Turkish prime minister Ragep Tayyip Erdogan’s speech at the European
Parliament in which he presented Turkey as a country where human
rights arerespected infuriated the members of the “Kurdistan”
committee. Erdogan said in his speech that all citizens of Turkey are
granted the possibility of preserving their mother tongue and
religion. “He seemed to have forgotten that the language, culture and
history of 20 millions of Kurds are forbidden. Kurds have no right to
have Kurdish schools, have their programs on TV, and what shall we
call these if not human rights’ violation? More than 10 thousand young
people are being tortured in Turkey’s prisons only for demanding the
government to recognize their identity and language. They are called
terrorists and receive life imprisonment for such steps”, Hasanov said
and recalled the case when former deputy of the Turkish Mejlis Leila
Zanan was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment only for saying few
sentences in Kurdish while swearing in. She was released only after 10
years and after international community interfered. Hasanov was sure
that the Turkish-Kurdish confrontation would persist as long as
Turkeyhews to the chosen line of intolerance.

The members of the committee said that the attitude of the Armenian
government towards Kurdish community is good and they have no
complaints. They underscored that the government met their need, and
Kurdish textbooks are soon to be published.

By Ruzan Poghosian