A court in İstanbul has imposed judicial supervision measures and a travel ban on a 13-year-old Kurdish teenager in a case concerning an alleged racist attack on the youngster by a classmate, journalist Cansel Tan reported, citing court documents.
“You’re a Kurd and a terrorist. You’re a member of the PKK,” the child’s classmate reportedly kept saying, referring to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community.
The verbal assaults lasted for months, according to Tan, and one day culminated in an incident in which the child reacted by tearing down a Turkish flag decoration that was hanging from one of the class windows.
The aggressive classmate was suspended for provocation, which triggered their parents to come to the school, verbally threaten the alleged victim and call the police.
The Kurdish child was questioned by a prosecutor who reportedly asked questions like “You’re feeding off this country, you’re living for free, what more do you want?”
Until the last few decades, Kurds in Turkey were denied recognition of their identity despite being the country’s largest minority group.
While the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) eased some of the restrictions on the Kurdish language and culture in early 2000s amid the democratization reforms undertaken as part of Ankara’s European Union membership bid, the party adopted an increasingly hawkish tone after the breakdown of its peace talks with the PKK in mid-2015 and its subsequent alliance with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) after 2016.
In recent years, the Kurdish political opposition has been equated with the PKK by government officials as well as the pro-government mainstream media, while the judiciary has prosecuted scores of people for alleged terrorist propaganda over the expression of the Kurdish identity in contexts not approved of by the government.
