Turkey to allow use of Kurdish language in court

PanARMENIAN.Net - Kurdish militants appear to have achieved their aim of being able to speak in their own language in court after the Turkish government said it would soon submit a bill to parliament on the subject, Reuters said.

Courts' refusal to allow defendants who speak Turkish to use Kurdish in their defense has been a source of controversy in ongoing court cases against hundreds of defendants accused of links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and resolving the issue has been one of several key Kurdish demands.

Some 700 Kurdish inmates in dozens of prisons are refusing solid food to try to exert pressure on Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government to grant greater Kurdish minority rights and better conditions for a jailed militant leader. Turkey's main medical association has warned that some of the hunger strikers may die if they continue their protest.

The government said its decision to change the law had nothing to do with the hunger strike.

"A person will be able to defend themselves in court in the language in which they can best express themselves," Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters late on Monday, November 5 after a cabinet meeting where the issue was discussed.

"The prime minister has given the order to our justice minister to develop this and send it rapidly to parliament to become law," he said.

Arinc said the ruling AK Party had pledged the reform in a booklet distributed at its congress in September, seeking to dispel the idea it was acting in response to the hunger strike.

The leader of the main pro-Kurdish party welcomed the move.

"But we don't have another 56 days ahead us to sort this out. There are only a few days. These statements must be acted on," BDP leader Selahattin Demirtas told a party meeting.