BBC
By Chris Morris in Istanbul
 22/01/2001

A city in south-east Turkey is appealing to one of the country's highest courts against a ban
on certain street names.

The appeal by the local council in the city of Batman comes as the Turkish Government is
debating how it should respond to European Union demands for the freer use of language.

The courts have decided that a number of street names chosen by the Batman city council
are unacceptable. Among them are several names in Kurdish, with translations such as Tulip
Street and High Pasture Street.

Most people in south-east Turkey are Kurdish

Use of Kurdish street names has been banned altogether. Other names have been vetoed
because they are alleged to have been chosen deliberately to encourage rebellion against the
state.

These include Mahatma Gandhi Street and Halabja Street, named after the Iraqi Kurdish
town against which Saddam Hussein's troops used chemical weapons.

Assimilation campaign

The mayor of Batman belongs to the pro-Kurdish party, HADEP. He believes the ban is part
of a campaign of assimilation and it would not have happened if another party had been
running the city council.

In a related development, another local branch of HADEP has been warned by the police
that no language other than Turkish should be used in its publications or at any of its
meetings.

South-east Turkey is a predominantly Kurdish region, but there is still considerable
resistance to easing restrictions on the use of the Kurdish language.

Some members of the Turkish Government agree with the European Union that restrictions
should be lifted, but others are still adamantly opposed to any change.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com