GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017
because they have been banged up by Erdoğan, the President who is creating
this tyranny there. Berdan speaks good English. He studied here as a lawyer
and I think he was the second person from his farming family to ever get to
university. He went back to Turkey and then he became a Member of
Parliament for the Kurdish community, so a massive welcome to Berdan.
(Applause)
BERDAN ÖZTÜRK: Thank you very much. It is an honour to be here. I would like to
thank you very much for your invitation on behalf of our party, HDP. Yes, I
studied here, but I got my LLM degree at SOAS in 2009. I have not practised
English for nine years. If there is a problem, please let me know. I have an
interpreter here, he can translate if you do not understand. Is it okay? It is
fine? (Positive response from delegates) Before I start, I would like to give
some information about AKP and Mr. Erdoğan. When first they came to power
in 2002 they promised Turkish people, Kurdish people, all people who live in
Turkey, he said that he will improve democracy, he will respect the human
rights, he will respect freedom of expression. People supported Mr. Erdoğan
because of that. Yes, we had a democracy in Turkey, but that democracy was
not good. As doubtless you know, in the 1990s we had a lot of problems –
torture, human rights violations, you just name it. When Mr. Erdoğan came to
power he said, “I am going to make Turkey a better country, make a good
democracy out of tyranny”, but he has not kept his promises.
As Kurdish people, we have been fighting for our rights, for our freedoms for
over 100 years in Turkey, just in Turkey. I am not talking about Iraqi Kurdistan,
Syrian Kurdistan, Iran Kurdistan, just in Turkey, we have been struggling for
over 100 years. What do we want? We want just our freedom. We want to be
equal with other Turkish people. We want to learn our language at schools, our
mother tongue. We do not want to separate from Turkey, we want to live
together, but they should respect our mother tongue, our history, our culture.
That is all we want. Yes, Mr. Erdoğan said, “The Kurdish question, it is my
problem, I am going to solve this problem”. He promised a lot of times, but he
has not kept his promises. In 2013 Mr. Erdoğan started a peace process.
There was a ceasefire between PKK and the Turkish Government. Mr. Öcalan
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