Mehmet Halis Bilden, mayoral candidate for Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Kurdish-majority southeastern Diyarbakir (Amed), has unveiled 26 planned projects with zero focus on the needs of women or the Kurdish-speaking community in the province, sparking concern ahead of the March 31 local elections.
Bilden outlined a suite of comprehensive development projects for transformation of the city’s infrastructure but failed to include any initiatives directed at the rights of women or the Kurdish-speaking population.
“There is absolutely no problem [with the Kurdish language in the city],” Bilden said, responding to criticism. “Diyarbakir speaks Kurdish by 90% and if it weren’t for the AK Party government, we might have forgotten our Kurdish language.”
“I conduct 80% of my campaign in Kurdish,” Bilden added, sidestepping the question of why his 26-project proposal lacked initiatives directly catered to the needs of his Kurdish-speaking constituents, such as municipal services in their mother tongue or cultural preservation programs.
Despite a lack of formal restrictions on Kurdish political discourse in Turkey, pro-Kurdish opposition parties who campaign in the Kurdish language face de facto bans. In the AKP-dominated Turkish parliament, Kurdish is effectively treated as a banned and unrecognised language, with microphones turned off if deputies speak in Kurdish.
Critics argue that Bilden’s claims, on the use of Kurdish in the AKP campaign and the broader narrative about the party’s support for Kurdish language rights, reveal a stark discrepancy between political rhetoric and practice.
