Celadet Ali Badirkhan Library was established by a pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) mayor in the southeastern city in 2016.
Named after the writer, linguist and diplomat otherwise known as Mir Celadet, the library was demolished on Saturday by order of a pro-government trustee, who replaced then-HDP mayor Berivan Helen Isik on May 15.
In a Sunday statement, the HDP denounced the library's demolition as an act of brutality against Kurdish identity.#Kayyum zihniyetinin Kürtçe ve Kürde dair düşmanlığı bitmiyor...
— Dr.Mehmet DEMİR (@DrMehmetDemir1) May 30, 2020
Siirt kayyumu güres caddesinde bulunan Kürtçe tabelayı kaldırdı sonra Kürtçe yazılı Celadet Eli Bedirxan yazılı kütüphaneyi yıktılar.#KayyumDarbedir. pic.twitter.com/qkoEwYb6NS
“Celadet Ali Badirkhan library has been demolished by the trustee of Siirt. Enmity against the language, culture and values of the Kurds is being carried out brutally. This humiliation of fascism and the occupying and racist mentality will be destroyed by our struggle,” read a tweet by the party.
Deposed mayor Isik also criticized the decision via Twitter.
“They [the state] are enemies to science, art, libraries, and every other beautiful thing,” she posted alongside photographs of the demolished building.
Isik is one of more than a hundred HDP mayors removed from office by Ankara and replaced with pro-government trustees, mostly from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP). The trustees replacing HDP mayors have previously targeted sites signposted in Kurdish, with signs of some municipality buildings and other public places removed.
The office of Siirt's new trustee-mayor Ali Fuat Atik did not confirm the library's demolition, but did say that they had begun taking down municipality-owned buildings on the street where the library is located to clear way for a transport project.
“Upon the request of our people, we demolished buildings, owned by our municipality and province, as the first step towards the execution of the Tramway Project in Gures Street which is closed to traffic,” the office said in a Saturday statement.
Mayor Atik's office termed the criticism against the demolition as “provocation,” saying it responds to them with a call of “We are one, together and brothers and we are all Turkey.”
Born to a prominent Kurdish family in 1893, Badirkhan was one of the first linguists to document and standardise the grammar of the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish.
Bedirkhan fled for Egypt in 1923 when nationalist Turks, led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, established modern Turkey. He died in Syria in 1951.
Demolition of his namesake building was also criticized by Kurds on social media.
“What does the burning of a library mean? It is 2020,” historical researcher Baran Zeydanlioglu asked on Twitter.
Ferzan, another Twitter user, called the library's destruction “an insult and oppression against the Kurds and Kurdish language. I call on the sleeping Kurds to see the reality! There is no other purpose [of the incident] than intolerance towards Kurds and Kurdish language. Have you not figured this out yet?”
