Turkey bar associations condemn TV host who stopped Kurdish speaker

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A number of bar associations from Kurdish areas of eastern Turkey have filed official complaints against a Turkish TV host who stopped a woman from speaking Kurdish during a live broadcast on Tuesday, an incident that drew ire and criticism on social media. Use of Kurdish language is restricted in Turkey and the issue frequently sparks disputes and complaints of discrimination.

Sirnak Bar Association filed a complaint against Didem Arsalan Yilmaz, accusing her of “hate and discrimination against the Kurdish language and the Kurdish people, and for inciting hate and enmity between the people,” it said in a statement released on Thursday.

Mardin and Van Bar Associations on Wednesday filed complaints with the public prosecutor.

Yilmaz, a presenter for the Turkish media channel Show TV, stopped a woman, who was on the show to resolve issues with her nieces, from speaking Kurdish on-air, telling her "speak Turkish properly, we will understand. This is the Republic of Turkey.”

She presents the daily social TV show Vazgecme, where she uses television to solve people’s problems, reveal secrets, and reunite families.

Mardin’s Bar Association also directed a complaint to the Radio and Television Supreme Council. “We don’t accept practices that may be the subject of hate crimes,” it stated.

Another bar association from the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir condemned the incident, saying “it is not possible for public authorities to define the Kurdish language as ‘an unknown and incomprehensible language.’”

Using such discriminatory language with respect to Kurdish is unacceptable and show that the “denial” of Kurds is continuing, it added, demanding an investigation.

Yilmaz tweeted about the incident on Wednesday morning, saying she did not mean to be disrespectful to the Kurdish language and apologized if she hurt anyone. "I have no problem with Kurdish speakers. I apologize to our citizens who were hurt."

She explained that she did not allow the woman to speak in Kurdish because she would not be understood by everyone and that she would do the same if the woman spoke in Arabic or English.

However, she was still harshly criticized on social media and by members of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). MP Remziye Tosun described Yilmaz’s reaction to the Kurdish language as “enmity” against Kurds.

The Kurdish language has been banned in official settings in Turkey since the foundation of the state nearly a century ago. The restriction of the language was eased during the peace process between the government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in 2013. However, when the process ended in 2015, things reversed.