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Kurdish novelist Mehmed Uzun dies in
Turkey after battle with stomach cancer
11.10.2007 |
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October
11, 2007
DIYARBAKIR, Kurdish Southeastern region of
Turkey, -- Mehmed Uzun, a Kurdish novelist who was
prosecuted for criticizing Turkey's ban on the
Kurdish language, died on Thursday, a friend said.
He was 54.
Uzun died in a hospital in the largely Kurdish
southeastern city of Diyarbakir after a battle
against stomach cancer, his friend Sehmuz Diken
said.
Uzun was the author of about a dozen novels in
Kurdish and Turkish, including "In the Shadow of a
Lost Love," and was considered one of the leading
pioneers of modern Kurdish literature.
He fled to Sweden in 1977 after serving a brief
prison term on Kurdish separatism charges for his
writings in the magazine Rizgazi, of which he was a
managing editor.
In 2000, Uzun was again prosecuted for instigating
separatism for a speech he made in Diyarbakir, in
which he slammed Turkey's ban on the Kurdish
language and called for Kurds to be educated in
Kurdish.
He was not present for the hearings, but through his
lawyer submitted written testimony. Uzun was
acquitted.
"Turkish should remain as the official language, but
Kurds should be educated in Kurdish in their own
regions," Uzun had said in his speech.
Speaking Kurdish was forbidden until 1990. Turkey
continued to ban the use of the Kurdish language in
schools, official settings and broadcasts other than
music until 2002, when — under pressure from the
European Union — it allowed a limited amount of
Kurdish programs on state-owned radio and
television.
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Kurdish novelist Mehmed Uzun.
Mehmed Uzun dies in
Turkey after battle with stomach cancer |
It still refuses to allow Kurdish education in
schools, saying it would divide the country.
"How can a language be banned? How can a ban be
imposed on the identity of a people," Uzun said. "I
am saying this not as a Kurd, but as an
intellectual."
In an interview with Milliyet newspaper last year,
Uzun said: "I believe this ban on Kurdish was one of
the Turkish republic's greatest mistakes."
He recalled how he was punished on his first day at
school for speaking Kurdish.
"I was slapped because I spoke Kurdish — I couldn't
even speak Turkish!" he told Milliyet.
Uzun was born in 1953 in the Kurdish province of
Sanliurfa. He became a Swedish citizen soon after
his exile in Sweden and lived there until 2005, when
he returned to Turkey.
He is survived by his wife, Zozan, and two children.
His funeral was scheduled for Oct. 13 in Diyarbakir,
Diken said.
AP
**
Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in
Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate over 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan
but unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag
is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it
is a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan ( Kurdistan-Turkey)
wikipedia
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