A group of young people, including university students, living in Nisêbîn (Nusaybin) district of Mêrdîn province went to Muğla's Bodrum district to work in April. They started working for Axis Mundi Travel, a subcontractor that provides transportation services for a hotel and golf courses in Bodrum, and were forbidden to speak Kurdish. Despite this, the youth insisted on speaking Kurdish among themselves. 

 

I.K., one of the managers of the company, told the whatsapp group, "Friends, this is not a political arena, so I don't look at religion (atheist etc.), language (Kurdish, Turkish, Laz) when hiring people. Therefore, everyone will only speak Turkish in the buggy park and service. Whatever you do outside of working hours (no ethnic music in the vehicles) I ask everyone to show the necessary care. Do your job, that's all," he wrote. 

 

Following this, 12 young people quit their jobs and returned to their hometowns. Due to their resignation, the young people were underpaid. The youth will file a complaint against the company.

 

'THEY DIDN'T WANT US TO SPEAK KURDISH'

 

Mehmet Aslan, one of the young people who told about their experiences, said that he İs a university student and that they went to work seasonally in tourism regions such as Bodrum. Stating that they were constantly warned "don't speak Kurdish", Aslan said: "When they heard a word of Kurdish, they would say 'don't speak'. They wouldn't allow us to sing either. Even at the end of the shift, they did not want us to speak Kurdish. Although we told them that it İs our language and that it could not be banned, they just said it was forbidden. This went on like this for about a month. We thought we would work for 3 months and get out. However, after the last whatsapp group message, we met face to face. He said that it İs forbidden to speak languages other than Turkish. When I asked if English and Spanish were also forbidden, he said Kurdish was forbidden. When he told us, 'It is forbidden to speak Kurdish', 12 of us quit our jobs."

 

 

'WE WILL FILE A LAWSUIT'

 

Kani İlhan, one of the young people who stated that the company cited the allegation of "They left their jobs without notice" as a reason for underpaying their payments, said: "Although they were aware that we would leave our jobs, they reported to the company headquarters that they were not aware of it. We met with human resources. We told them that the payments were missing and they didn't listen to us. We will file a lawsuit against them."  

 

MA / Ahmet Kanbal