Early Day Motions [EDM]
TOM BRAKE
Westminster Office
House of Commons, Westminster, London SW1A 0AA

020 7219 0924
020 8395 4453
[email protected]

Mr (name and surname of MP) (Your address)
House of Commons London SW1A 0AA
4 Decemebr 2010
Dear Mr [ Surname of your MP]

As a member of your constituency and an activist within the Kurdish community in (write your borough, or area, or town) I am writing to you to support the campaign organised by the Kurds in Turkey and supported by the Kurdish community in the UK, for the recognition of the right of the legal use of Kurdish language in public affairs and for teaching in schools.

1. It is a sad fact that in this 21st century, the Kurds in Turkey are still struggling for the recognition of their identity, using their names, respecting their democratic will for participation in political processes and democratic frameworks and to allow their children to study Kurdish in schools teaching both Turkish and Kurdish. Defendants in courts are punished for saying 'yes' in Kurdish. Children are imprisoned for asking to study in their mother tongue. Legislators are put in jail for years for using Kurdish to swear their allegiance to the Turkish state. Elected representatives of people in Kurdish regions, democratically elected according to the very laws of the Turkish state, are arrested, persecuted, tried and punished en masse for expressing their Kurdish identity.

A mass trial of 151 Kurdish political leaders opened in Turkey on 18 October. These are the people believing in Turkish democracy and believing in participation in the peaceful political process as the right way for solving the Kurdish problem and achieving Kurdish democratic co-existence and integration in Turkey through equal citizenship rights and ethnically-inclusive democracy. Rather than encouraging this democratic trend among the Kurdish community, the Turkish state is accusing Kurdish community leaders, politicians and activists of 'violating the unity of the state' and abetting terrorism. This charge is also used against the Kurdish children demanding the right to study in Kurdish. Among the 151 accused are prominent Kurdish politicians, lawyers, elected mayors, and many respected leaders of Kurdish civil society organisations, of whom some 103 have already been held in detention for more than 18 months. The first part of the trial was expected to conclude on 12 November 2010. But on 11 November 2010 a decision was taken by the court to postpone the ongoing trial to 13 January 2011, following an impasse resulting from the suspects insistence on exercisding their natural right of delivering their defences in their native language, Kurdish, a request the prosecution has continuously refused.
The court in Diyarbakir, or described Kurdish as the so-called Kurdish language and the unknown language during the trial of the Kurdish heads of municipalities and members of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). The defendants and their attorneys were not allowed to present their defence case in Kurdish. When Salma Irmak, one of the defendants, said in Kurdish I want to present my defence case in Kurdish, the courts judges cut off his microphone. The judge then told Irmak, You dont understand the courts language and speak in the so-called Kurdish language. When the attorneys for the Kurdish defendants criticized the courts decision, the judge said, If you want to present your defence case, I will allow you, otherwise your microphones will be switched off. Following that the courts session was adjourned until Nov. 11.
In the next session the arguments over the use of Kurdish language continued. When the court read out the defendants names, they said levrem in Kurdish, meaning present. When the judge asked the defendants if any of them wanted to give their defence case in Turkish, the court fell silent.

Most of those on trial have been in pre-trial custody for extreme lengths of time, some as long as 19 months.  These excessive periods of detention not only constitute a flagrant violation of the right to a speedy trial; they lack any logical basis, as none of the suspects are accused of using violence or weapons. Instead, the crimes of the Kurdish politicians include participating in civil demonstrations, issuing press statements, criticizing state policies, participating in conferences and commissions, and other activities that politicians and human rights defenders routinely do in any democratic country.
5. To assert their Kurdish identity and right to use their language, Kurds in Turkey have launched a campaign for the broader use of the Kurdish language . Around 95 municipalities, political and popular entities in Turkeys Kurdistan have decided to take part in the campaign. Kurdish children are participating in the campaign demanding their right to study in their language. Kurdish communities and organisations including Kurdish community in Britain are supporting this campaign for language and civil democratic rights.

6. Kurds in Turkey want the Turkish democracy, if exists, to be inclusive. To embrace all ethnic, religious and social sections of society. To be democracy before being Turkish and to be Turkish in the sense of the constitutionally and legally established rights of citizenship to all citizens of Turkey without any racial discrimination. And the use of Kurdish is the most basic natural right that the Kurds as citizens and as the second largest national group in Turkey (over 15 million people) should freely enjoy without fear of persecution and punishment.

Dear Mr (surname of your MP)
I appeal to you to support this campaign by writing to the British Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and the British Foreign Secretary asking them to publicly support the right of the Kurds in Turkey to be taught in their mother tongue and asking the Turkish government to stop the unjust trial of Kurdish politicians who are supporting and participating in the democratic political processes in Turkey. We would be grateful if you could also present a parliamentary question to the Foreign Secretary regarding these issues.

Yours sincerely (Your anme, surname and signature)