Bermal Yildeniz, a newly graduated lawyer who interned at the Diyarbakir Bar Association, appeared in a viral video taking her lawyer’s oath in Kurdish ahead of receiving her licence. The footage sparked uproar among ultranationalist Turks.
The Bar Association said in a statement that Yildeniz took her oath first in Kurdish, and later in Turkish as the law requires, noting that the viral video took out the latter part. The association also said that they have allowed lawyers to take their oath in Kurdish before or after the Turkish oath.
“These attacks have once again demonstrated the intolerance towards the Kurdish language,” read the statement from the Diyarbakir Bar Association on X, “we publicly condemn the racist and hate-filled attacks against our colleague and declare that we do not accept the intolerance towards Kurdish.”
Yildeniz confirmed to Rudaw English that she took the lawyer’s oath in Turkish following the Kurdish one.
Several ultranationalist accounts attacked Yildeniz for the incident and called for the revocation of her lawyer’s licence.
An Ankara-based bar association issued a statement on Thursday, stating that Yildeniz’s taking the lawyer’s oath “in another language, has caused discomfort to our bar association and the Turkish public.”
The Kurdish language was banned for much of the 20th century following the birth of Turkey's modern state in the 1920s. The public use of the language was illegal, including speaking, publishing, or singing in Kurdish until 1991.
Although Kurdish is no longer banned in Turkey, public displays of the language still face backlash from Turkish ultranationalists.
Turkey’s current constitution, ratified after the 1980 military coup, stipulates that the country’s only official language is Turkish. It does not entirely prohibit the use of Kurdish, but successive Turkish governments have cracked down on its use.
