Criminal complaint over racist writing on school stairs

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Bar Association of the southeast city of Şırnak filed a criminal complaint about writings on the stairs of a secondary school in Osmangazi, Bursa, a city in northwest Türkiye, for "provoking the public into hatred and hostility."

The complaint was filed with the Cizre Prosecuter's office in order to be sent to the Bursa Prosecuter's office, Mezopotamya Agency reported today (November 14). 

"Writings are causing hatred to spread"

The complaint said, "In the photograph shared by many on social media, it can be seen that it is written "Either speak Turkish or keep quiet!" and "Turkish has no deficiency, do you?" on the stairs of the school in question.

"Although there are also some writings on mother tongue, especially the expression saying 'Either speak Turkish or keep quiet!' will have a discriminative affect on students of secondary school age, spread hatred, and cause psychological harm.

"The school administration has targeted those who speak in another mother tongue than Turkish at school, encouraging the students or the authorities at school to prevent or to assault those who speak a language other than Turkish even among themselves. The school administration has therefore committed the crime of 'misconduct in office' regulated with article 216 in the Turkish Criminal Act."

The bar association of Şırnak requested in the complaint for a public prosecution to be started.

What happened?

Yusuf Özmen from the executive committee of the Education and Science Employees Union (Eğitim-Sen) Bursa branch shared photographs of writings on the stairs of the Şehit Komando Er Ramazan Okur Secondary School in Osmangazi, Bursa in his social media accounts.

Özmen said in his post "I took this photo today at the stairs of a school in Bursa. I recalled the "Speak Turkish, speak more" slogan on the wall of the Diyarbakır prison during the military coup period. To say "Either speak Turkish or keep quiet" at a place where people from many ethnic origins live together is fascism.

Özmen was also mentioning in his post that he had talked to the school administration and that they had asked him 'why he was taking offense at the official language of the country.' (EMK/PE/VK)