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Kurdish-Danish MP challenges Turkish gov’t
on Kurds, women 12.3.2010
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March
12, 2010
ANKARA/COPENHAGEN, — SF Danish
parliament member addressed Turkish politicians in
Kurdish, urging more economic reforms for the
eastern part of the Euro-Asian country.
MP Özlem Sara Cekic of the Socialist People’s Party
travelled to Ankara this week with the aim of
challenging Turkey's political leaders on the issues
of Kurdistan and women’s rights.
Cekic was a guest speaker on Tuesday for a
conference in connection with International Women’s
Rights Day at the headquarters of government-leading
party AKP. She was also scheduled to meet with
Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on
Wednesday.
In addition to raising criticism of the Turkish
government’s record with regard to the nation’s
Kurdish population and women’s rights,www.ekurd.netshe
held her speech in Kurdish – a language spoken by
around 18 percent of the Turkish population but not
recognised as an official one. |
Kurdish Danish MP Özlem Sara Cekic of the Danish
Socialist People’s Party |
Cekic, whose family originally hails from Ankara,
told Turkish newspaper Today’s Zaman that Turkey has
come a long way in its treatment of the Kurds.
She also addressed the country’s high unemployment,
widespread poverty and the lack of education among
the general population, adding the country’s ongoing
battle with internal terrorism is an economic one.
‘If we want to solve the terror problem then we
should bring education and jobs to the east. When we
eliminate the poverty then there will be no reason
for people to take up arms and fight from the
mountaintops,’ she told Today’s Zaman.
The plight of the Kurds has been well-documented in
international media. The ethnic group numbers around
35 million people who reside in an area covering
southeastern Turkey (Northern Kurdistan),
northeastern Syria (Western Kurdistan), northwestern
Iran (Eastern Kurdistan) and northern Iraq (Southern
Kurdistan).
‘The Kurdish area of Turkey continues to suffer from
oppression. There aren’t enough jobs or educational
facilities and there’s a serious lack of health care
personnel there,’ she told Berlingske Tidende
newspaper.
‘Kurdish women who can only speak Kurdish are not
allowed to study in their own language – and we’re
talking about millions of people,’ said Cekic.
Erdogan is the conference’s host and has invited
Cekic and other speakers to the event, whose aim is
to ‘bring together women from east and west and give
them a platform to discuss women's rights’.
Experts had warned that if Cekic held her speech in
Kurdish, Erdogan and other Turkish politicians would
likely leave the hall in protest. But Erdogan and
the other high-standing governmental AKP members had
already left long before Cekic took the podium.
According to Berlingske Tidende, however, Güldal
Aksit, a member of the government’s equal rights
committee, was present during the speech just a few
metres away from the podium. She reportedly
whispered to Cekic to switch over to Turkish – a
request that the Danish MP ignored.
An unnamed reporter from Today’s Zaman told
Berlingske Tidende that Cekic’s speech would
probably not ruffle too many governmental feathers.
‘But it means that it’s no longer such a serious
thing that someone speaks Kurdish. Even the prime
minister spoke a few words in Kurdish,’ said the
reporter, referring to the opening of TRT6, Turkey’s
first legal Kurdish television station.
Erdogan himself spoke of more reforms at the
conference prior to his leaving. But the Turkish
prime minister is presently caught up in a fierce
power struggle with the country’s military elite,
and more than 30 officers accused of planning a coup
were arrested across the country last week.
Özlem Sara Cekic (born in Ankara, Turkey) is a
Danish politician. Özlem Sara Cekic is originally a
Kurd, but moved to Denmark at age of 10 after
including having lived a period in Finland.
Copyright, respective
author or news agency,
The Copenhagen post | cphpost.dk
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