Turkey bans novel about late Peshmerga deminer for ‘praising PKK’

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A Turkish court in Istanbul has decided to ban a novel about the life of a legendary Peshmerga fighter and volunteer deminer for “praising” the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK).

The Istanbul Press Prosecutor opened a case on January 4 against Selim Curukkaya for allegedly praising the PKK and “targeting Turkish security forces” in his book “Dr. Seid: When we lost the key to mountains,” written about his brother, who died during the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS).

Dr. Seid Curukkaya, was injured in Bashiqa, Nineveh province while defusing an improvised explosive device laid by ISIS on October 26, 2016.  He died four days later in a hospital in Germany.

The Istanbul Heavy Penal Court decided to ban the book on the same day, and fine Doz publication house 40,000 liras ($5,420) for publishing it in both Kurdish and Turkish in November 2020. Doz says they weren’t informed of the ban until last week. 

Doz’s manager, Koroglu Karaaslan, who testified to the court last week, denies the claims and will appeal the decision, he told Rudaw English on Wednesday evening.

“We will appeal the decision,” he said, adding that prosecutors ignored the content of the book as a whole.

The PKK is an armed group struggling for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey. It is regarded as a terrorist organization by Ankara. 

Dr. Seid, who was born in Turkey’s Bingol province in 1968, served as a PKK senior commander between 1990 and 2000, before moving to Germany until 2014. Later, he moved to the Kurdistan Region to join Peshmerga in the fight against ISIS.

“When my country is under attack, I cannot live there [Germany]. We have to protect our country,” he told Rudaw in November 2015.

The court “claims that the book includes PKK  propaganda … it is not a propaganda book, but a novel,” Selim told Rudaw English. 

The book details the life of his brother, including stories of their ancestors during World War I and in a number of Kurdish uprisings and revolutions in Ankara. 

“I have been criticizing the PKK for 27 years,” he said, adding that he even wrote a book critical of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

“I will never accept the ban. I will translate the novel into English, German and French as well,” he added.

Karaaslan, too, said that he will not accept the ban and will not pay the fine. “If I pay it, it will mean I accept that we made a mistake. We criticize the PKK and I am against [the organization].” 

According to data Rudaw obtained from Kurdish publication houses, Ankara has banned 109 Kurdish-related books, including 31 in Kurdish language since 2016.