Name	Daily Mail
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Tabloid
Foundation	4 May 1896
Owners	Daily Mail and General Trust
Political	Pro-Conservative
Publisher	Associated Newspapers Ltd
Editor	Paul Dacre
Circulation	2,100,855
Language	English
Website	dailymail.co.uk }}

The ''Daily Mail'' is a British, daily middle market tabloid newspaper. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after ''The Sun''. Its sister paper ''The Mail on Sunday'' was launched in 1982. Scottish and Irish editions of the daily paper were launched in 1947 and 2006 respectively. The ''Daily Mail'' was Britain's first daily newspaper aimed at the newly-literate "lower-middle class market resulting from mass education, combining a low retail price with plenty of competitions, prizes and promotional gimmicks", and the first British paper to sell a million copies a day. It was, from the outset, a newspaper for women, being the first to provide features especially for them, and is still the only British newspaper whose readership is more than 50% female.

Overview

The ''Mail'' was originally a broadsheet but switched to a compact format on 3 May 1971, the 75th anniversary of its founding. On this date it also absorbed the ''Daily Sketch'', which had been published as a tabloid by the same company. The publisher of the ''Mail'', the Daily Mail and General Trust is currently a FTSE 250 company and the paper has a circulation of around two million which is the third-largest circulation of any English language daily newspaper and one of the highest in the world.

Circulation figures according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations in November 2010 show gross sales of 2,100,855 in November 2010 for the ''Daily Mail''. According to a December 2004 survey, 53% of ''Daily Mail'' readers voted for the Conservative Party, compared to 21% for Labour and 17% for the Liberal Democrats. The main concern of Viscount Rothermere, the current chairman and main shareholder, is that the circulation be maintained. He testified before a House of Lords select committee that "we need to allow editors the freedom to edit", and therefore the newspaper's editor was free to decide editorial policy, including its political allegiance. The ''Mail'' has been edited by Paul Dacre since 1992.

Under Dacre, the Mail has a reputation for a conservative editorial stance on topics such as immigration, working women and teenage sex.

History

Early history

The ''Daily Mail'', devised by Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) and his brother Harold (later Lord Rothermere), was first published on 4 May 1896. It was an immediate success. It cost a halfpenny at a time when other London dailies cost one penny, and was more populist in tone and more concise in its coverage than its rivals. The planned issue was 100,000 copies but the print run on the first day was 397,215 and additional printing facilities had to be acquired to sustain a circulation which rose to 500,000 in 1899. Lord Salisbury, 19th-century Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, dismissed the ''Daily Mail'' as "a newspaper produced by office boys for office boys." By 1902, at the end of the Boer War, the circulation was over a million, making it the largest in the world.

With Harold running the business side of the operation and Alfred as Editor, the Mail from the start adopted an imperialist political stance, taking a patriotic line in the Second Boer War, leading to claims that it was not reporting the issues of the day objectively. From the beginning, the Mail also set out to entertain its readers with human interest stories, serials, features and competitions (which were also the main means by which the Harmsworths promoted the paper).

In 1900, the ''Daily Mail'' began printing simultaneously in both Manchester and London, the first national newspaper to do so (in 1899, the ''Daily Mail'' had organised special trains to bring the London-printed papers north). The same production method was adopted in 1909 by the ''Daily Sketch'', in 1927 by the ''Daily Express'' and eventually by virtually all the other national newspapers. Printing of the ''Scottish Daily Mail'' was switched from Edinburgh to the Deansgate plant in Manchester in 1968 and, for a while, ''The People'' was also printed on the Mail presses in Deansgate. In 1987, printing at Deansgate ended and the northern editions were thereafter printed at other Associated Newspapers plants.

In 1906, the paper offered £1,000 for the first flight across the English Channel and £10,000 for the first flight from London to Manchester. ''Punch'' magazine thought the idea preposterous and offered £10,000 for the first flight to Mars, but by 1910 both the Mail's prizes had been won. (For full list see Daily Mail aviation prizes.)

The paper was accused of warmongering before the outbreak of World War I, when it reported that Germany was planning to crush the British Empire. Northcliffe created controversy by advocating conscription when the war broke out. On 21 May 1915, Northcliffe wrote a blistering attack on Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War. Kitchener was considered a national hero, and, overnight, the paper's circulation dropped from 1,386,000 to 238,000. 1,500 members of the London Stock Exchange ceremonially burned the unsold copies and launched a boycott against the Harmsworth Press. Prime Minister H. H. Asquith accused the paper of being disloyal to the country.

When Kitchener died, the Mail reported it as a great stroke of luck for the British Empire. The paper then campaigned against Asquith, who resigned on 5 December 1916. His successor, David Lloyd George, asked Northcliffe to be in his cabinet, hoping it would prevent him from criticising the government. Northcliffe declined.

Inter-war period

As Lord Northcliffe aged, his grip on the paper slackened and he might have nothing to do with it for months at a time. But light-hearted stunts might enliven him, such as the Hat campaign in the winter of 1920. This was a contest with a prize of £100 for new design of hat — a subject in which Northcliffe took a particular interest. There were 40,000 entries and the winner was a cross between a top hat and a bowler christened the ''Daily Mail Sandringham Hat''. The paper subsequently promoted the wearing of it but without much success. In 1922, when Lord Northcliffe died, Lord Rothermere took full control of the paper.

In 1919, Alcock and Brown made the first flight across the Atlantic winning a prize of £10,000 from the ''Daily Mail''. In 1930, the ''Daily Mail'' made a great story of another aviation stunt, awarding another prize of £10,000 to Amy Johnson for making the first solo flight from England to Australia.

The ''Daily Mail'' had begun the Ideal Home Exhibition in 1908. At first, Northcliffe had disdained this as a publicity stunt to sell advertising and he refused to attend. But his wife exerted pressure upon him and he changed his views, becoming more supportive. By 1922, the editorial side of the paper was fully engaged in promoting the benefits of modern appliances and technology to free its female readers from the drudgery of housework. The ''Mail'' maintained the event until selling it to Media 10 in 2009.

On 25 October 1924, the ''Daily Mail'' published the forged Zinoviev Letter, which indicated that British Communists were planning violent revolution. This was a significant factor in the defeat of Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Party in the 1924 general election, held four days later.

From 1923, Lord Rothermere and the ''Daily Mail'' formed an alliance with the other great press baron, Lord Beaverbrook. Their opponent was the Conservative party politician and leader Stanley Baldwin. By 1929, George Ward Price was writing in the Mail that Baldwin should be deposed and Beaverbrook elected as leader. In early 1930, the two Lords launched the United Empire Party which the ''Daily Mail'' supported enthusiastically.

The rise of the new party dominated the newspaper and, even though Beaverbrook soon withdrew, Rothermere continued to campaign. Vice Admiral Taylor fought the first by-election for the United Empire Party in October, defeating the official Conservative candidate by 941 votes. Baldwin's position was now in doubt but, in 1931, Duff Cooper won the key by-election at St George's, Westminster, beating the United Empire Party candidate, Sir Ernest Petter, supported by Rothermere, and this broke the political power of the press barons.

In 1927, the celebrated picture of the year ''Morning'' by Dod Proctor was bought by the ''Daily Mail'' for the Tate Gallery.

Lord Rothermere was a friend and supporter of both Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, which influenced the ''Mail'''s political stance towards them during the 1930s. Rothermere's 1933 leader "Youth Triumphant" praised the new Nazi regime's accomplishments, and was subsequently used as propaganda by them.

Rothermere and the ''Mail'' were also editorially sympathetic to Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. Rothermere wrote an article entitled "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" in January 1934, praising Mosley for his "sound, commonsense, Conservative doctrine". This support ended after violence at a BUF rally in Kensington Olympia later that year.

Post-war history

On 5 May 1946, the ''Daily Mail'' celebrated its Golden Jubilee. Winston Churchill was the chief guest at the banquet and toasted it with a speech,

In reply, Lord Rothermere II had something to say about the newsprint shortages at that time for, while the ''Mail'' of 1896 was 8 pages, the Mail of 1946 was reduced to just 4.

The ''Daily Mail'' was transformed by its editor of the seventies and eighties, Sir David English. Sir David began his Fleet Street career in 1951, joining ''The Daily Mirror'' before moving to ''The Daily Sketch'', where he became features editor. It was the ''Sketch'' which brought him his first editorship, from 1969 to 1971. That year the ''Sketch'' was closed and he moved to take over the top job at the ''Mail'', where he was to remain for more than 20 years. English transformed it from a struggling rival selling two million copies fewer than the ''Daily Express'' to a formidable journalistic powerhouse, which soared dramatically in popularity. After 20 years perfecting the Mail, Sir David English became editor-in-chief and chairman of Associated Newspapers in 1992.

The paper enjoyed a period of journalistic success in the 1980s, employing some of the most inventive writers in old Fleet Street including the gossip columnist Nigel Dempster, Lynda Lee Potter and sportswriter Ian Wooldridge (who unlike some of his colleagues — the paper generally did not support sporting boycotts of white-minority-ruled South Africa — strongly opposed Apartheid). In 1982, a Sunday title, the ''Mail on Sunday'', was launched (the ''Sunday Mail'' was already the name of a newspaper in Scotland, owned by the Mirror Group.) There are Scottish editions of both the ''Daily Mail'' and ''Mail on Sunday'', with different articles and columnists. In 1992, the current editor, Paul Dacre, was appointed.

Scottish, Irish, Continental and Indian editions

Scottish ''Daily Mail''

The ''Scottish Daily Mail'' was published as a separate title from Edinburgh, starting in 1947. The circulation was poor though, falling to below 100,000 and the operation was rebased to Manchester in December 1968. In 1995 the ''Scottish Daily Mail'' was relaunched printed in Glasgow. With a circulation in Dec 2009 of 113,771 making it the third highest daily newspaper sale in Scotland.

Irish edition

The Daily Mail officially entered the Irish market with the launch of a local version of the paper on 6 February 2006; free copies of the paper were distributed on that day in some locations to publicise the launch. Its masthead differs from that of UK versions by having a green rectangle with the word "IRISH", instead of the Royal Arms. The Irish version includes stories of Irish interest alongside content from the UK version. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the Irish edition had a circulation of 63,511 for July 2007, falling to an average of 49,090 for the second half of 2009. Since 24 September 2006 ''Ireland on Sunday'', the Irish Sunday newspaper acquired by Associated in 2001, was replaced by an Irish edition of the ''Mail on Sunday'' (the ''Irish Mail on Sunday''), to tie in with the weekday newspaper.

Continental and Overseas Daily Mail

Two foreign editions were begun in 1904 and 1905; the former titled the "Overseas Daily Mail", covering the world, and the latter titled the "Continental Daily Mail", covering Europe and North Africa.

''Mail Today''

The newspaper entered India on 16 November 2007 with the launch of ''Mail Today'', a 48-page compact size newspaper printed in Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida with a print run of 110,000 copies. Based around a subscription model, the newspaper has the same fonts and feel as the Daily Mail and was set up with investment from Associated Newspapers and editorial assistance from the ''Daily Mail'' newsroom.

Libel lawsuits

The ''Daily Mail'' has been involved in a number of notable libel suits. Among them are:

2010, July—£47,500 award to Parameswaran Subramanyam for falsely claiming that he secretly sustained himself with hamburgers during a 23-day hunger strike in Parliament Square to draw attention to the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka. 2009, January—£30,000 award to Dr Austen Ivereigh, who had worked for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, following false accusations made by the newspaper concerning abortion. 2006, May—£100,000 damages for Elton John, following false accusations concerning his manners and behaviour. 2003, October—Actress Diana Rigg awarded £30,000 in damages over a story commenting on aspects of her personality. 2001, February—Businessman Alan Sugar was awarded £100,000 in damages following a story commenting on his stewardship of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.

Editorial stance

In the late 1960s, the paper went through a phase of being liberal on social issues like corporal punishment, but soon returned to its traditional conservative line. In Tony Blair's early years as Labour leader and then Prime Minister, the paper wrote positively about him and his reforms of the party.

The editorial stance changed to become critical of Tony Blair in his later years as Prime Minister, and the ''Mail'' endorsed the Conservative Party in the 2005 general election. Writing for the ''New Statesman'', Johann Hari accused columnist Richard Littlejohn of having a "psychiatric disorder" about homosexuality with a "pornographic imagination."

The paper is generally critical of the BBC, which it says is biased to the left. The ''Mail'' has also opposed the growing of genetically-modified crops in the United Kingdom, a stance it shares with many of its left-wing critics.

On international affairs, the ''Mail'' broke with the establishment media consensus over the 2008 South Ossetia war between Russia and Georgia. The ''Mail'' accused the British government of dragging Britain into an unnecessary confrontation with Russia and of hypocrisy regarding its protests over Russian recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia's independence, citing the British government's own recognition of Kosovo's independence from Russia's ally Serbia.

Melanie Philips, once known as a voice for The Guardian and New Statesman moved to the right in the 1990s, writes for the ''Daily Mail'', covering political and social issues from a conservative perspective. She has defined herself as a liberal who has "been mugged by reality".

Famous stories

''The Daily Mail'''s front page of 8 July 1934, featured the headline "Hurrah for the Blackshirts". The ''Mail'' also referred to Hitler's "sturdy young Nazis".

On 7 January 1967, the ''Mail'' published a story, "The holes in our roads", about potholes, giving the examples of Blackburn where it said there were 4,000 holes. This detail was then immortalised by John Lennon in the Beatles song "A Day in the Life", along with an account of the death of 21-year-old socialite Tara Browne in a car crash on 18 December 1966, which also appeared in the same issue.

On 16 July 1993 the ''Mail'' ran the headline "Abortion hope after 'gay genes' finding"; this headline has been widely criticised in subsequent years, for example as "perhaps the most infamous and disturbing headline of all" (of headlines from tabloid newspapers commenting on the Xq28 gene).

The ''Mail'' campaigned on the case of Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager who was murdered in a racially motivated attack in Eltham, London in April 1993. On 14 February 1997, the ''Mail'' led its front page with a picture of the five men accused of Lawrence's murder and the headline "MURDERERS", stating that it believed that the men had murdered Lawrence and adding "if we are wrong, let them sue us". This attracted praise from Paul Foot and Peter Preston.

On 9 October 2009 the ''Mail'' ran the headline "Hunger striker's £7m Big Mac: Tamil who cost London a fortune in policing was sneaking in fast-food" The article stated that "Scotland Yard surveillance teams using specialist monitoring equipment had watched in disbelief" as Parameswaran Subramaniyan, a Tamil hunger striker protesting outside the Houses of Parliament, covertly broke his fast by secretly eating McDonald's burgers. When a request for an apology and retraction of this story was refused, Mr Subramanyam issued proceedings against the paper. In court, the newspaper's claim was shown to be entirely false; the Met superintendent in charge of the policing operation confirmed there had been no police surveillance team using the "specialist monitoring equipment". As a result, on 29 July 2010, Mr Subramanyam is understood to have accepted damages of £47,500 from the Daily Mail. The newspaper also paid his legal costs, withdrew the allegations and apologised "sincerely and unreservedly" for the distress that had been caused.

A 16 October 2009 Jan Moir article on the death of Stephen Gately, which many people felt was inaccurate, insensitive, and homophobic, generated over 25,000 complaints, the highest number of complaints for a newspaper article in the history of the Press Complaints Commission. Major advertisers such as Marks and Spencer responded to the criticism by asking for their own adverts to be removed from the ''Mail Online'' webpage around Moir's article. The ''Daily Mail'' removed all display ads from the webpage with the Gately column.

Supplements and features

{| |-valign=top |width=50%| ''Daily Mail'' ''City & Finance'' – City & Finance is the business part of the Daily Mail, and the Financial Mail is the business paper free with the Mail on Sunday. City & Finance features City News and the results from the London Stock Exchange, and also has its own website called ''This is Money''.

''Travelmail'' – Contains travel articles, advertisements etc.

''Femail'' – Femail is an extensive part of the ''Daily Mail'''s newspaper and website, being one of four main features on Mail Online others being News, TV & Showbiz and Sport. It is designed for women.

''Weekend'' – The ''Daily Mail Weekend'' is a TV guide published by the ''Daily Mail'', included free with the ''Mail'' every Saturday. Weekend magazine, launched in October 1993, is issued free with the Saturday ''Daily Mail''. The guide does not use a magazine-type layout but chooses a newspaper style similar to the ''Daily Mail'' itself. In April 2007, the "Weekend" had a major revamp. A feature changed during the revamp was a dedicated Freeview channel page.

|width=50%|

''Mail on Sunday''

''Financial Mail on Sunday'' – now part of the main paper, this section includes the Financial Mail Enterprise, focusing on small business.

''You'' – ''You'' magazine is a women's magazine featured in the ''Mail on Sunday''. It is a mix of in-depth features plus fashion, beauty advice, practical insights on health and relationships, food recipes and interiors. The ''Mail'' markets it, with ''Live'' magazine, as the only paper to have a magazine for him (''Live'') and for her (''You''). The ''Mail on Sunday'' is read by over six million a week. ''Live'' – this magazine is aimed at men. The main features are columns by well-known people.

''Mail on Sunday 2'' This pullout includes review, featuring articles on the arts, books and culture and it consists of reviews of all media and entertainment forms and interviews with sector personalities, property, travel and health.

''Sportsmail'' – on the back pages of the ''Mail''. It features different sports including an emphasis on alternative sports such as darts and snooker.

''Football Mail on Sunday'' – this reviews Premier League, Championship and Football League games from Saturday as well certain international games.

|}

Regular cartoon strips

''Garfield''

''I Don't Believe It'' (discontinued)

''Odd Streak''

''The Strip Show''

''Chloe and Co.'' (by Knight Features)

''Up and Running'' (by Knight Features)

''The Gambols'' (Sunday, in the Cartoons section)

''Fred Basset''

''Peanuts'' (Sunday, in the Cartoons section)

Current cartoon strips that are in the ''Daily Mail'' include ''Garfield'' which moved from the ''Daily Express'' in 2006 and is also included in ''The Mail on Sunday''. ''I Don't Believe It'' is another 3/4 part strip, written by Dick Millington. ''Odd Streak'' and ''The Strip Show'', which is shown in 3D are one part strips. ''Up and Running'' is a strip distributed by Knight Features and ''Fred Basset'' follows the life of the dog of the same name in a two part strip in the ''Daily Mail'' since 8 July 1963. ''The Gambols'' are another feature in the ''Mail on Sunday''.

The long-running ''Teddy Tail'' cartoon strip, was first published on 5 April 1915 and was the first cartoon strip in a British newspaper. It ran for over 40 years to 1960, spawning the ''Teddy Tail League'' Children's Club and many annuals from 1934 to 1942 and again from 1949 to 1962. Teddy Tail was a mouse, with friends Kitty Puss (a cat), Douglas Duck and Dr. Beetle. Teddy Tail is always shown with a knot in his tail.

Online media

The ''Daily Mail'' and ''The Mail on Sunday'' publish most of their news online in a service called the Mail Online which is viewed daily by nearly 3 million users. Most of the site can be viewed for free and without registration, though some services require users to register.

Contributors

Notable regular contributors (present)

{|width=100% |-valign=top |width=25%| Journalists

Claire Bates

Craig Brown

Alex Brummer

Julie Burchill

Rebecca Camber

Patrick Collins

Derek Draper

Sam Greenhill

Roy Hattersley

Liz Jones

|width=25%|

Des Kelly

Lester Middlehurst

Tom Kelly

Ann Leslie

Quentin Letts

Richard Littlejohn

Edward Lucas

David Mellor

Jan Moir

Julie Moult

|width=25%|

Melanie Phillips

Graham Poll

Paul Sheehan

Norman Tebbit

Michael Winner

Stephen Wright

Janet Street-Porter

|width=25%|

Cartoonists

Alex Graham

Stanley McMurtry

Photographers

Dave Parker

Mark Richards

Jamie Wiseman

|}

Past writers

Paul Callan

William Comyns Beaumont (left in 1903 to create ''The Bystander'')

Anthony Cave Brown (worked from mid-1950s to mid-1960s, won "Reporter of the Year" award in 1958)

Nigel Dempster

Simon Heffer (left in 2005 to join the ''Daily Telegraph'')

Percy Izzard Gardening and country life correspondent for over 50 years.

Ralph Izzard Journalist, author, adventurer and one time Berlin Bureau Chief, Izzard was a staff writer for the ''Mail'' beginning in 1931 and continued contributing until his death in 1992, with the only interruption being his service in British Naval Intelligence during WWII.

Paul Johnson (left the ''Mail'' in 2001)

John Junor

Lynda Lee-Potter (wrote for the ''Mail'' from 1967 until her death in 2004)

William Le Queux A prolific writer of invasion literature in the pre-First World War period. Valentine Williams (1883–1946) General news correspondent and, during the First World War, chief of the ''Daily Mail'' war service. Later a popular mystery novelist.

Keith Waterhouse

Ian Wooldridge, a sportswriter on the paper from 1961 until his death in 2007

Political allegiance

The Daily Mail is a traditional supporter of the Conservative Party, although it did back Tony Blair's "New Labour" in the 2001 general election, where they were re-elected by a landslide.

Editors

:1896: S. J. Pryor :1899: Thomas Marlowe :1922: W. G. Fish :1930: Oscar Pulvermacher :1930: William McWhirter :1931: W. L. Warden :1935: Arthur Cranfield :1939: Bob Prew :1944: Sidney Horniblow :1947: Frank Owen :1950: Guy Schofield :1955: Arthur Wareham :1959: William Hardcastle :1963: Mike Randall :1966: Arthur Brittenden :1971: David English :1992: Paul Dacre

Source: D. Butler and A. Sloman, ''British Political Facts, 1900–1975'' p. 378

See also

''Daily Chronicle'', a newspaper which merged with the ''Daily News'' to become the ''News-Chronicle'' and was finally absorbed by the ''Daily Mail''

1910 London to Manchester air race

Notes

References

External links

''Mail Online''

Category:Daily Mail and General Trust Category:Publications established in 1896 Category:Newspapers published in the United Kingdom Category:British media Category:Edwardian era Category:1896 establishments in the United Kingdom *

af:Daily Mail (Suid-Afrika) ca:Daily Mail cy:Daily Mail da:Daily Mail de:Daily Mail es:Daily Mail eo:Daily Mail fr:Daily Mail it:Daily Mail nl:Daily Mail ja:デイリー・メール no:Daily Mail pms:Daily Mail pl:Daily Mail pt:Daily Mail ro:Daily Mail ru:Daily Mail simple:Daily Mail fi:Daily Mail sv:Daily Mail tl:Daily Mail tr:Daily Mail ur:ڈیلی میل

Ethnic Kurds compose a significant portion of the population in Turkey (Turkish: ''Türkiye'deki Kürtler'', Kurdish: ''Kurdên li Tirkiye''). Unlike the Turks, the Kurds speak an Indo-European language. There are Kurds living all over Turkey, but most live to the east and southeast of the country, from where they originate.

In the 1930s, Turkish government policy aimed to forcibly assimilate and Turkify local Kurds. Today's presence of Kurds is a testimony that many have resisted these measures. Since 1984, Kurdish resistance movements included both peaceful political activities for basic civil rights for Kurds within Turkey, and violent armed rebellion for a separate Kurdish state. But, according to a Turkish opinion poll, 59% of self-identified Kurds in Turkey think that Kurds in Turkey do not seek a separate state (while 71.3% of self-identified Turks think they do).

History

Under the Ottoman Empire

According to Shaller and Zimmerer in the Journal of Genocide Research, the leadership of Young Turks planned to eliminate Kurdish identity by deporting Kurds from their ancestral land and displacing them in small groups. In this era, the Kurds suffered from deportations and death marches and forced Turkification. The Young Turks partially implemented these plans in WWI and 700,000 Kurds were forcibly removed where approximately 350,000 of these displaces Kurds perished. These Kurds were forced by the Young Turks to go on death march resembling the Armenian marches which was part of a plan to eliminate Kurdish identity.

Under the Republic of Turkey

After the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, which ended the caliphates and sultanate in Turkey, there have been several Kurdish rebellions since the 1920s: Koçkiri Rebellion, Sheikh Said Rebellion, Dersim Rebellion, Ararat rebellion.

In 1937–1938, approximately 50,000–70,000 Alevi Kurds were killed and thousands were taken into exile. A key component of the turkification process was the policy of massive population resettlement. Referring to the main policy document in this context, the 1934 law on resettlement, a policy targeting the region of Dersim as one of its first test cases, with disastrous consequences for the local population. The Dersim ethnocide is often confused with the Dersim Rebellion that took place during these events. Today, not much is left of Derim's distinctive culture and the majority of its people live in the diaspora.

After the 1960 coup, the State Planning Organization (, DPT) was established under the Prime Ministry to solve the problem of Kurdish separatism and underdevelopment. In 1961, the DPT prepared a report titled "The principles of the state's development plan for the east and southeast" (), shortened to "Eastern Report". It proposed to defuse separatism by encouraging ethnic mixing through migration (to and from the Southeast). This was not unlike the policies pursued by the Committee of Union and Progress under the Ottoman Empire. The Minister of Labor of the time, a 35-year-old Bülent Ecevit, was critical of the report.

During the 1970s, the separatist movement coalesced into the Marxist-Leninist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which is listed as a terrorist organization internationally by a number of states and organizations, including the United States, United Nations, NATO and the European Union. From 1984 to 1999, the Turkish military was embroiled in a conflict with the PKK. The village guard system was set up and armed by the Turkish state around 1984 to combat the PKK. The militia comprises local Kurds and it has around 58,000 members. Some of the village guards are fiercely loyal to the Turkish state, leading to infighting among Kurdish militants.

Much of the countryside in the southeast was depopulated, with Kurdish civilians moving to local defensible centers such as Diyarbakır, Van, and Şırnak, as well as to the cities of western Turkey and even to western Europe. The causes of the depopulation included PKK atrocities against Kurdish clans they could not control, the poverty of the southeast, and the Turkish state's military operations. Human Rights Watch has documented many instances where the Turkish military forcibly evacuated villages, destroying houses and equipment to prevent the return of the inhabitants. An estimated 3,000 Kurdish villages in Turkey were virtually wiped from the map, representing the displacement of more than 378,000 people.

The epitome of this conflict was during the 1990s, when the National Security Council sanctioned a covert war using the special forces, village guards, mafia, and contract killers. The conflict soon wheeled out of control, resulting in the Susurluk scandal. The conflict tapered off after the capturing of the PKK's leader, Abdullah Öcalan.

In 2010, after PKK rebels killed five Turkish soldiers in a series of incidents in eastern and southeastern Turkey, several locations in Northern Iraq were attacked by the Turkish Air Force . The tense condition has continued on the border since 2007, by both sides responding to each others every offensive move, mostly initiated by attacks from the PKK to the Turkish military bases on the border, reported by witnesses in the border villages.

Following Turkey's electoral board decision to bar prominent Kurdish candidates from standing in upcoming elections, violent Kurdish protests erupted in April 19, 2011, resulting in at least one mortal casualty.

Culture

Music

Between 1982 and 1991 the performance or recording of songs in the Kurdish language was banned in Turkey, affecting singers such as Şivan Perwer and İbrahim Tatlıses. However a black market has long existed in Turkey, and pirate radio stations and underground recordings have always been available. Although there is no ban on performing Kurdish language music, it is effectively prevented from being broadcast on radio or television through censorship.

Some of the foremost figures in Kurdish classical music of the past century from Anatolia include Mihemed 'Arif Cizrawî (1912–1986), Hesen Cizrawî, Şeroyê Biro, 'Evdalê Zeynikê, Si'îd Axayê Cizîrî and the female singers Miryem Xanê and Eyşe Şan.

Şivan Perwer is a composer, vocalist and tembûr player. He concentrates mainly on political and nationalistic music - of which he is considered the founder in Kurdish music - as well as classical and folk music.

Another important Kurdish musician from Turkey is Nizamettin Arıç (Feqiyê Teyra). He began with singing in Turkish, and made his directorial debut and also stars in Klamek ji bo Beko (A Song for Beko), one of the first films in Kurdish. Arıç rejected musical stardom at the cost of debasing his language and culture. As a result of singing in Kurdish, he was imprisoned, and then obliged to flee to Syria and eventually to Germany.

Literature

There is no existing evidence of Kurdish literature of pre-Islamic period. Some sources consider Ali Hariri (1425–1495) as the first well-known poet who wrote in Kurdish. He was from the Hakkari region.

Since the 1970s, there has been a massive effort on the part of Kurds in Turkey to write and to create literary works in Kurdish. The amount of printed material during the last three decades has increased enormously. Many of these activities were centered in Europe particularly Sweden and Germany which have large concentrations of Kurdish immigrants. There are several Kurdish publishers in Sweden, partly supported by the Swedish Government. More than two hundred Kurdish titles have appeared in the 1990s.

Well-known contemporary Kurdish writers from Turkey include Mehmed Uzun, Mehmed Emin Bozarslan, Mahmud Baksi, Hesenê Metê and Rojen Barnas.

Film

Yılmaz Güney was a famous film director, scenarist, novelist and actor. He directed and starred in the film Umut (1970) (Turkish for "Hope"), and his most famous movie is 1982 film Yol (Turkish for "The Road" or "The Way"), which won Palme d'Or in Cannes Film Festival in 1982.

Some other films by Kurdish people in Turkey are Hejar (aka ''Big Man, Little Love'') by Handan İpekçi and Klamek ji bo Beko by Nizamettin Arıç.

Yılmaz Erdoğan is another famous film director, screenwriter, poet and actor from Turkey of Kurdish ethnicity.

Demographics

Most Kurds live in Turkey, where their numbers are estimated somewhere between 11,400,000 and 14,000,000 people. Both figures include Zaza people as Kurds. However Kurdish nationalists claim there are as many as 20 million Kurds in Turkey. These figures are for the number of persons who identify as Kurds, not the number who speak a Kurdish language. Estimates based on native languages place the Kurdish population at 6% to 23%; Ibrahim Sirkeci claims the closest figure should be above 17.8%, taking into account political context and so the potential bias in responses recorded in surveys and censuses. Also the population growth rate of Kurds in 1970s was given as 3.27%.

Today, Kurdish populations remain highest in the traditionally Kurdish-majority regions of southeastern Turkey, corresponding with Turkish Kurdistan, as well as the more developed and industrialised northwestern provinces due to significant migration in the late 1980s. There are also Kurds in the Central Anatolia Region, concentrated to the west of Lake Tuz (Haymana, Cihanbeyli, Kulu, Yunak) and also scattered in districts like Alaca, Çiçekdağı, Yerköy, Emirdağ, and Zile, as well as in significant to high numbers of the northeast, most importantly the large presence in Kars and surrounding provinces of the South Caucasus wherein many Kurdish villages scatter across the borders into Armenia and Georgia. According to a March 2007 survey, Kurds and Zazas together comprise an estimated 13.4% of the adult population, and 15.68% of the whole population.

Racism and Intolerance

The European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) reports that (as of April 2010): "The public use by officials of the Kurdish language lays them open to prosecution, and public defence by individuals of Kurdish or minority interests also frequently leads to prosecutions under the Criminal Code."

See also

Minorities in Turkey

List of Kurdish people

Syrian Kurds

References

External links

Human Rights Abuses Against the Kurdish Minority a report by Amnesty International

Turkey's "Kurdish Problem": Is the End in Sight?

US Journalist Deported from Turkey After Reporting on Plight of Kurds - video report by ''Democracy Now!''

Category:History of the Kurdish people Category:Ethnic groups in Turkey Category:Kurdish diaspora Category:Ethnic minorities

bg:Кюрди в Турция de:Kurden in der Türkei fr:Kurdistan turc ru:Курды в Турции tr:Türkiye Kürtleri