Turkey’s culture ministry bans Kurdish movie ‘Rojbash’ in theaters

The Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry has refused to allow the Kurdish movie “Rojbash” to be screened in theaters across the country on the grounds that the movie is “not suitable for commercial circulation,” according to the İstanbul-based Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA).

“Rojbash,” which means “Hello” or “Good morning” in Kurdish, was produced by Kurdish director Özkan Küçük, who applied to the ministry seeking its permission for the screening of the movie in theaters.

The movie tells the story of a Kurdish actor who dedicated his career to the Kurdish theater and began to gather his team members from around the world to re-stage a play titled “Rojbash,” which they had put on the stage 25 years ago.

The movie talks about how restrictions on use of the Kurdish language in Turkey have remained in place over the years as the actors are again faced with obstacles in putting their play on stage due to their use of the Kurdish language.

Most of the dialogue in the movie is in Kurdish, although there is also some dialogue in Turkish.

Along with the adventures of the actors who want to stage their play again, the movie’s plot also covers the events after 2016, when Kurdish actors in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır lost their jobs after the city’s mayor was replaced with a government-appointed trustee.

Küçük told the MLSA that it was ironic that he has to wage a legal battle for the screening of his movie, which focuses on the difficulties and obstacles faced by Kurds in producing works of art in their own language.

He said he was hoping the movie, on which he and the actors worked for around six years, would be shown in all theaters across the country to reach a broader audience but that the ministry imposed a de-facto ban on it, which was more severe than an act of censorship.

“I think both [the screening] of our movie and our freedom of expression are under constitutional guarantee,” he said, while vowing to fight a legal battle to ensure the removal of the ban on the movie.

The MLSA filed a lawsuit at an Ankara court against the ministry’s decision to ban the movie in theaters.

MLSA co-director and lawyer Veysel Ok said the ministry’s decision to ban the movie, without giving any convincing reason, stems from the fact that most of it is in Kurdish. Ok said the ministry prohibited the screening of the movie without even examining its content with a translator.

Throughout most of the 20th century, successive governments have imposed outright bans on or suppression of the Kurdish language in Turkey, which is seen as linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies, the PKK has been waging a decades-long war against the Turkish state that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Since an attempted coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in July 2016, the government has shut down a number of Kurdish language institutes, dailies, websites and TV channels as part of a crackdown targeting the Kurdish political movement.

According to a MLSA report in March, Turkish authorities have banned at least 28 concerts and cultural events in the Kurdish language across 16 provinces since 2019.