Is Turkey wiping out Kurdish institutions during lengthy state of emergency?
Turkey is continuing is massive purge of suspects — many of them Kurds — in the July 15 coup attempt, dismissing thousands more civil servants in the past week.
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — On Jan. 7, the Turkish government issued three more state of emergency decrees, dismissed thousands more civil servants and closed 83 more nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
Since the July 15 failed coup, about 1,500 NGOs have been closed.
Some NGOs were accused of being affiliated with the Fethullah Gulen movement, which the government believes was behind the coup attempt, and others were closed because they were charged with being allied with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which Turkey considers a terrorist group. All NGOs that had “Free Citizen” in their names in cities with Kurdish populations were banned on charges of providing legitimacy to PKK sympathizers. Yet were all these NGOs actually close to the PKK?
The Kurdish Institute of Istanbul, a research NGO concerned with the Kurdish language and literature, attracted particular attention when it was closed down with the latest decree. It was set up in 1992 when one could not even mention "the Kurdish issue," let alone debate it. Its creation by leading intellectuals was disputed, but it was not closed. In 2000, President Suleyman Demirel officially invited the institute management to Europe Day observances. Institute staffers were eventually recognized as experts by the courts, and those who had certificates were allowed to work as court translators. Nevertheless, the institute was closed down on political grounds 25 years after its establishment.
