イスタンブール当局、クルド語の風刺劇の上演禁止

【イスタンブールＡＦＰ＝時事】トルコ当局は、同国最大都市イスタンブールの市営劇場で13日に初演を予定していた、クルド語による演劇の上演を禁止した。関係者らによると、同劇場の106年間の歴史で初めてのことだという。（写真はトルコのイスタンブール市営劇場の前で、クルド語劇の上演禁止について語る俳優のルゲス・キリチさん）
　イスタンブール市政は世俗派の野党・共和人民党（ＣＨＰ）が担っており、イスタンブール市営劇場は同党の監督下にある。
　市営劇場で劇団テアトラ・ジヤナ・ヌーが上演予定だったのは、イタリアのノーベル文学賞受賞劇作家ダリオ・フォーの作品「Ｔｒｕｍｐｅｔｓ　ａｎｄ　Ｒａｓｐｂｅｒｒｉｅｓ（トランペットとラズベリー）」のクルド語版「ベル」。誘拐された政治家が救出後、病院の手違いで自分を助けた男そっくりに整形されてしまうというあらすじの風刺劇だ。
　トルコ当局はこのクルド語版劇が、トルコ政府がテロ組織に指定する非合法武装組織「クルド労働者党（ＰＫＫ）」のプロパガンダを広めており、「治安上」の懸念があるとして上演を禁じた。禁止の決定が通告されたのは、初日開演のわずか数時間前だった。
　イスタンブール県のアリ・イェルリカヤ知事はツイッターで、「ベル」の上演が禁じられたのはクルド語による演劇だからではなく、ＰＫＫのプロパガンダが含まれていたからだと述べている。
　また、トルコ内務省報道官はツイートで「ＰＫＫというテロ組織のプロパガンダを広める演劇は、クルド語であろうと、トルコ語であろうと、アラビア語であろうと許されない」とし、クルド語だから禁止したのだという批判を「またしてもうそであり、またしても挑発だ」と一蹴した。また上演を許可した人物に対しては、法的処分が下されると述べた。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/10/15-11:34）

Turkish authorities have banned a Kurdish-language play that was due to open Tuesday in Istanbul's municipal theatre for the first time in its 106-year history, organisers told AFP.
Beru, a Kurdish adaptation of Dario Fo's Trumpets and Raspberries, was included in the October programme of the Istanbul Municipality City Theatre, to much fanfare.
The city theatre is under the authority of the secular opposition CHP party city government.
Fo's work as a playwright and satirist was honoured in 1997 with the Nobel Literature Prize. But authorities said the play had been banned because of public order concerns and disseminating propaganda for the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), designated as a terror group.
The satire involves a politician rescued from kidnapping whose face is mistakenly reconstructed in hospital in the likeness of the man who saved him.
Performed by Teatra Jiyana Nu (New Life Theatre), it had been due to open in the Gaziosmanpasa neighbourhood at 1730 GMT, but news of the ban arrived only a few hours before curtain up.
We were all on stage for rehearsal and ready for the audience but instead handed a statement from the local administration that we are banned, actress Ruges Kirici told AFP outside the theatre, which was under police surveillance.
We cannot perform at the moment, she said.
- 'Lie, provocation'-
The theatre group protested the ban online with the Turkish Twitter hashtag #KurtTiyatrosuEngellenemez (Kurdish theatre cannot be prevented).
Istanbul governor Ali Yerlikaya said Beru was banned not because it was a Kurdish-language play but because it contained PKK propaganda, in a message on Twitter.
A theatre play spreading the PKK terror organisation's propaganda will be allowed neither in Kurdish, Turkish nor in Arabic, Ismail Catakli, spokesman for the interior ministry, tweeted, dismissing the criticism as another lie, another provocation.
He said legal action had been taken against those who had given it the green light.
The city theatre -- whose history goes back to the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of the modern Turkey -- had decided to take on some work from independent theatres that are struggling in the coronavirus pandemic.
But it has come under fire since then, with some pro-government media accusing the opposition municipality of allowing a play by a theatre group linked to outlawed Kurdish militants.
- 'Why dangerous?'-
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AKP government took steps to improve Kurds' cultural and linguistic rights as part of an initiative announced in 2009 when he was prime minister.
These included allowing Kurdish-language institutions and media outlets, as well as kindergartens that teach children in Kurdish.
But after the collapse of a fragile truce in 2015, violence resumed in the Kurdish-majority southeast between Turkish security forces and Kurdish militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The government has since launched a crackdown on Kurdish media organisations and culture centres.
It was widened after Turkey's failed 2016 coup, with the government removing many elected mayors of Kurdish-run municipalities from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) on terror-related charges and replacing them with trustees.
The HDP took to Twitter to condemn the ban on a Kurdish-language play in Istanbul where five million Kurds live, denouncing a fascist mentality.
The troupe had already performed the play in several festivals at home and abroad, but Tuesday was going to mark the first performance in an official Turkish venue.
Actress Kirici also denounced the decision.
The play by Dario Fo was performed in many languages all over the world, she said. Why is it dangerous when it is in Kurdish? Why does it threaten public safety?
Actor Omer Sahin compared the decision to past pressure by the governments in the 1990s, when tensions between the PKK and the army were at their peak.
We are no longer in the 1990s but the decision today has sent us back to the atmosphere and mindset of that era, he said.