The Kurdish Language Rights Monitoring and Reporting Platform (Kurdish Monitoring) has published its 2025 report on violations against the Kurdish language and culture in Turkey. According to the report, violations were documented across various spheres throughout the year, particularly in public spaces, media, arts and culture, and prisons.

 

Prepared on the basis of open-source research, media reports, statements by civil society organizations, and direct notifications, the report states that the Kurdish language and culture faced at least 70 violations over the course of the year. Of these, 25 occurred in public spaces, 15 in the media, 18 in the arts and culture sector, and 12 in prisons.

 

The report notes: “This year's data shows once again that the use of Kurdish is criminalized in every area of life, not only on the streets but from the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) to high-security prisons, from wedding halls to university campuses. We are faced with a wide range of violations, extending from the detention of young people singing on the streets in Hakkâri to the shutting off of microphones of MPs representing the will of the people at the parliamentary podium; from the imprisonment of 86-year-old religious scholar Mela Silêman Sebrî for reading a sermon in Kurdish to the banning of the phrase "Hebûn" (Existence) on the Amedspor jersey.”