Ten members of the Independent Youth Platform took the "Kurdish Living Oath,” at a gathering that drew the attention of onlookers and security forces who repeatedly questioned the motive behind the gathering.
The police repeatedly inquired about the event in Turkish, but the platform members responded in Kurdish.
"There are many types of protest activities that we will hold in Kurdistan [Turkey's southeast regions] step by step as a form of passive resistance. Our first activity is the pledge to live in Kurdish," said Farid Azad, the platform’s spokesperson, during the ceremony.
The young men and women took the oath in both the Kurmanji and Zazaki dialects of Kurdish.
Kurds make up around a fifth of Turkey’s population, but few are able to speak their mother tongue. Turkish is the country’s only constitutionally recognized language. It is the language of employment, education, and public institutions.
By contrast, the Kurdish language has suffered from waves of criminalization in Turkey, with restrictions on its use relaxed for political leverage.
The members of the Independent Youth Platform say that they will continue such activities until the Kurdish language becomes a dominant spoken language in the Kurdish areas of Turkey.
"Our nation is ashamed of its own language. It is ashamed of its own culture. We want to break this habit," Asmin Evindara, a member of the platform, told Rudaw’s Mashallah Dakak.
Turkey’s ruling and opposition parties pass back-and-forth blame for the scarce use of Kurdish, particularly among young Kurds.
