Turkey: Information on treatment of Kurds in Turkey; consequences of their return to Turkey
| Publisher | Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada |
| Author | Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board, Canada |
| Publication Date | 1 June 1989 |
| Citation / Document Symbol | TUR0982 |
| Cite as | Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Turkey: Information on treatment of Kurds in Turkey; consequences of their return to Turkey, 1 June 1989, TUR0982, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6aba32c.html [accessed 22 May 2023] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
Please find attached copies of the following reports which provide information on treatment of Kurds in Turkey:
-Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1987, (Washington: U.S. Department of State, 1988), pp. 1042-1043.
-Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1988, (Washington: U.S. Department of State, 1989), pp. 1208-1209.
-Critique (Review of the Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1987), (Washington: Human Rights Watch/Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, June 1988), pp. 154-158.
Briefly summarized, the documents state that Turkey has a stringent policy of forcibly integrating the country's minority population through suppression of their ethnic identities. Kurds, as other minorities, can and have been integrated into Turkish society, and some have even achieved influential positions in government, but only at the expense of their cultural identity. [ Country Reports for 1988, p. 1209.] The pressure on Kurds, according to the attached reports, went to the extreme of forbidding the use of Kurdish language in conversations between prisoners and their visiting relatives or lawyers, and the banning of recordings and singing of Kurdish songs in public. [ Country Reports for 1988, p. 1198.] According to the latest Country Reports (1989), the former prohibition has been lifted and, for the first time, the government allowed the sale of a recording of Kurdish songs in 1988. [ Ibid.] However, the same report indicates that publishing materials in Kurdish or writing about Kurdish history can result in imprisonment. [ Ibid.]
It must be noted also that the situation of Kurds may vary depending on their area of habitation. At present, the Turkish government is engaged in a prolonged confrontation with an armed Kurdish separatist movement operating mainly in the southeastern region of the country. Human Rights Watch indicates that military abuses and torture on family members of suspected rebels have been reported, as well as the forced relocation of entire villages and the occasional killing of ordinary peasants in the region. [ Critique (Review of the Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1987), (Washington: Human Rights Watch/Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, June 1988), p. 156.]
Since the military coup of 1980, the government has refused to renew the passports of thousands of Turks living abroad. [Critique, p. 158; Country Reports for 1988, p. 1201.] Some of those who attempted to return without valid passports were refused entry, while others were arrested and a few were temporarily imprisoned. [ Country Reports for 1988, p. 1201.]
