A Kurdish man, Memduh Çalışan was briefly detained following his outcry over the lack of Kurdish language support at Istanbul Airport, which left his elderly mother stranded airside for an extended period on Sunday. He faced accusations of disseminating misleading information and anti-state propaganda, and was subsequently questioned by the prosecution.
The initial incident, documented by bystanders and widely shared on social media, has sparked widespread criticism and calls for more inclusive language services at the airport.
The Istanbul Governor’s Office accused Çalışan of spreading misinformation and anti-state propaganda, reflecting Turkey’s routine practice of detaining individuals for social media content on various charges, including insult and misinformation.
Despite being Turkey’s largest minority, Kurds lack official recognition in the country, with their language largely excluded from the public sphere, except for some concessions which came about in the early 2000s during a more positive phase in Turkey’s EU accession process.
Despite restrictions on Kurdish in government-controlled media having been eased, independent Kurdish outlets continue to face significant harassment.
Kurds face hate crimes and abuse for public use of their language and legal and penal systems often reject the use of Kurdish, and public services frequently omit the language of the country’s second largest ethnic group, favouring the languages of smaller minority communities like Arabic and Russian.