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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Many Turkish nationalists have criticised Diyarbakir (Amed) municipality for naming a new boulevard after the legendary Kurdish leader Sheikh Said, with some of them insulting him. Turkey’s ruling party endorsed the decision.
Amed municipality on Wednesday announced that it had started working on a boulevard in the city, introducing it as Sheikh Said Boulevard. Soon after the announcement, Turkish nationalist politicians, journalists and social media users condemned the move, claiming that the legendary leader was an enemy of the state and a collaborator of the British.
Umit Ozdag, leader of the Turkish far-right Victory Party, was quick to denounce the decision, asking in a post on X which government names a boulevard after a “traitor who rebelled against it, massacred hundreds of officers and military and civilian officials.”
“If you were going to establish Sheikh Sait Boulevard, why did you appoint a trustee?” he added.
The municipality was won by a pro-Kurdish party in 2019 but the government replaced the elected mayors with state-linked trustees (administrators) due to their alleged links with the Kurdish rebels.
In August last year, Ozdag came under fire for insulting Sheikh Said who revolted against the newly-established Turkish state in Diyarbakir in 1925 but was hanged the same year.
Fatih Altayli, a renowned Turkish journalist, strongly criticised naming of the boulevard after the Kurdish leader, accusing him of being a “disgraceful” and “dishonourable” person and a “collaborator" of the British.
The Diyarbakir Bar Association and Sheikh Said Association said that they had separately filed lawsuits against Altayli for insulting the leader.
Kurds reacted to the backlash, announcing their support for the municipality’s decision.
“The discourses of the chauvinist groups who criticize Sheikh Said and his comrades and the people who make a living as journalists do not have the slightest value in the eyes of the Kurdish people,” said the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, formerly Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), in a post on X on Tuesday.
“Sheikh Said and his comrades are among the important values of the Kurdish people who fought for their rights and were oppressed by the state for this reason, and will always be remembered as such. Those who insult our values should know their place,” added the party which had won Diyarbakir in the 2019 local elections.
Faysal Firat, a grandson of Sheikh Said, told Bianet news outlet on Tuesday that his grandfather was not a collaborator of the British, adding that he did not receive any support from them.
“If the British had helped we would not hide this,” he noted.
Many politicians and lawmakers from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) endorsed the municipality’s decision, expressing their respect for the legendary leader.
Sheikh Said was “one of the important figures of our social memory and an exemplary personality,” said AKP lawmaker Abdurrahman Firat, describing attacks on him as “baseless.”
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