| Submitted by Tsiatsan on Monday, November 09 2009 |
Kurdish Info - If you remember the peace groups from Maxmur also had young members. Hêlan, Hêvî, Bêwar and Rojda. The four children were born as refugees. Their names went into the records of the UN and Kurdish Regional Government. However it has emerged that their names were changed at Habur’s Border Gate. Bêwar which means ‘without home’ in Kurdish became ‘Bever’ which has no meaning in Turkish or Kurdish. The name Hêlan was changed to Helen and Hêvî to Hevi, whereas the only name not to change was Rojda. This has once again revealed the AKP’s expansion mentality which cannot even tolerate Kurdish names.Now father Kamil Ökten is asking; ‘we returned and what has happened?’ Ökten invokes that the government is calling for the residents of Maxmur camp to return. And then appeals for the constitution to be changed so that it is respectful of human rights and demands that the State abandon its policy of banning people’s identities.
The spokesman of the Maxmur camp group Nurettin Turgut also emphasises that they left Turkey because they didn’t accept this system. He says that at the camp they were educated in their own language, could learn their own culture and give their children the names they chose. Turgut indicates that Turkey hasn’t changed. Ökten and Turgut end by saying that they are going to continue their struggle against this situation.
