Kurdish-language traffic signs in the eastern province of Elazığ were defaced on Saturday by unknown individuals, the Artı Gerçek news website reported.
In similar recent incidents, traffic signs in Kurdish were vandalized in other eastern provinces in what has been interpreted as racially motivated attacks on a minority language.
In Van, unknown individuals painted over Kurdish pedestrian crossing warnings, which originally read “Pêşî Peya (Pedestrians First),” replacing them with the nationalist slogan “Turkey is for Turks and will remain Turkish.”
Meanwhile, a 16-year-old boy claimed that he was responsible for such vandalism in Diyarbakır, that he had consulted with both a lawyer and a contact in the counterterrorism police before vandalizing the signs and that they assured him he would face minimal repercussions.
The Turkish state has in the past severely restricted the use of the Kurdish language and strictly denied it official recognition, including at the local and provincial levels, despite the fact that it is the language of the country’s largest minority.
The visibility of Kurdish on TV and in the print media was only made possible in the early 2000s thanks to significant progress made in the country’s bid to become a member of the EU.
Yet, the drift towards nationalism and the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) alliance with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in the last decade has led to an increase in anti-Kurdish racist attacks.
