Turkish municipality to hold music contest in three languages, including Kurdish

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The municipality of Siirt city in southeast Turkey has opened its doors for young people to apply for an online music contest in three languages, including Kurdish.  Such contests are common in the country but the inclusion of Kurdish is rare.

“Online Music Contest is organized by the Siirt Municipality Directorate of Culture and Social Affairs within the scope of education, culture, and art activities. Citizens will have the opportunity to showcase their talents in three languages: Turkish, Kurdish and Arabic,” read a statement from the municipality on Tuesday.
 
The applicants must be citizens of Siirt and aged between 16 to 30. The songs must be in one of the three languages and the videos should not be longer than a minute, according to the statement. 

The applications will be received between July 16 through 25, at which point, the winners will be announced through an online event in which the submitted videos will be showcased and the top three winners awarded. 

Siirt municipality has been governed by pro-government trustees who replaced an elected mayor who had won the position on the ticket of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in 2018. The elected mayor was accused of having links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).  
 
The former trustee, Ali Fuat Atik, who was also the governor of the Kurdish majority Siirt province, ordered the demolition of a library named after a renowned Kurdish intellectual, days after his inauguration in May 2020. The elected mayor, Berivan Helen Isik, had put the sign of the municipality in Turkish, Kurdish, and Arabic languages but the trustee removed the last two. 

The current trustee mayor is Osman Hacibektasoglu who is also the governor of Siirt. 

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 PKK in 2013. However, when the process ended in 2015, things reversed. 

Kurdish political parties and language promotion institutions launched a campaign in June, calling on the Turkish government to recognize Kurdish as an official language in the country. Their calls, just like other similar calls, were ignored by the government.