AMED TIMES - In 2014, the city council of Diyarbakır decided to name a boulevard after Sheikh Said on behalf of the then People's Democratic Party (HDP) by council resolution.
The boulevard was inaugurated during the period in which the municipality was administered by a trustee. As part of the implementation of the decision to name it after Sheikh Said, the Victory Party filed a lawsuit to annul the decision.
On June 4, 2024, the decision of the 3rd Administrative Court of Diyarbakır to cancel the naming of the boulevard after Sheikh Said was announced by Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya.
The President of the Diyarbakır Bar Association, Nahit Eren, emphasized the importance of Sheikh Said for the Kurds with the following statements:
"Sheikh Said's name has great importance among Kurds with different political views and beliefs. In any situation where there is an attitude against Sheikh Said or opposition to him, the Kurds show a unified response. Therefore, Sheikh Said has become an important figure around whom the Kurds show a unified reaction.
"The state wants to erase Sheikh Said from the memory of the Kurds"
Eren explained that Sheikh Said should be erased from the memory of the Kurds: “Sheikh Said is a subject that the state wants to erase and eliminate from the memory of the Kurds. Despite the trials initiated by the Sheikh Said Association and the Diyarbakır Bar Association and the fact that the location of his grave has not been disclosed, the courts have been inadequate in this regard, and the so-called trials carried out by the state have led to unacceptable results such as the execution of Sheikh Said. Recently, the naming of a boulevard after Sheikh Said in Diyarbakır was discussed. However, this boulevard has been put on the agenda with extreme nationalist and racist rhetoric from the west of Turkey, and therefore debates have started about how a boulevard or street should be named."
For Kurds, the square is Sheikh Said Square
Eren explained that the Kurds consider Sheikh Said Square as their own square: “In 2011, it became known that the decision of the municipality was stopped by the governor's office because the procedure had not been completed. For the Kurds in Diyarbakır, the name of Sheikh Said is present on every boulevard. It is certainly valuable for us to have this name on a boulevard. But even if this name is not formally given to streets under the current government, legal understanding or bureaucratic structure, we all know that the square right next to us is Sheikh Said Square. All Kurds know this square as such. The square where Sheikh Said and his friends were executed remains Sheikh Said Square in the hearts of Kurds.
As in the past, legal and bureaucratic mechanisms still pose obstacles to the values that the Kurds represent. This is not a big problem for us. The symbols we cherish will continue to exist and live on in the memory of the Kurds. The aim is to erase and destroy this memory. But a century has passed and Sheikh Said lives on in the minds of the Kurds with the same vitality as on the first day," he said.
