Breaking taboos is not easy. The confusion of the Prosecutor’s Office of Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals in deciding whether the word "Kurdistan" in a political party’s name is in compliance with the law is proof of it. Turkish media reported on June 29 that the prosecutor’s office decided Turkey’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (T-KDP) was free to organize and operate as a political party and that the word “Kurdistan” did not contravene the law of the land. The same media, however, reported on July 2 that the same prosecutor’s office sent a written notice to T-KDP warning that it should remove the name “Kurdistan” from its party name.
Mustafa Guler, an Ankara-based lawyer, stresses that there is no confusion in the law. “The law is clear that this party is in violation of the ‘political parties law’ and until the government makes a change in that law, this party should not be legally free to operate,” he told Al-Monitor. Guler refers to Article 96 of the "political parties law" that makes it clear in writing that no party can be named after a region, religion, sect, race or ethnicity.
