Osman Baydemir Quotes

#1. I have had it up to here with the prosecutions, the government's attitude, the judiciary, the media's stance and the majority of Turks who view the Kurdish people's justified cause through a nationalist lens.

Osman Baydemir

#2. All of my life I have stayed away from violence and the instruments of violence, and have seen a legal, democratic struggle as the only means to achieve change.

Osman Baydemir

#3. I am at a crossroads; I have always been against armed opposition ... I have chosen civil disobedience. But I will apologize to my people if there are funerals coming out of prisons. I will criticize myself and I won't be the mayor of Diyarbakir.

Osman Baydemir

#4. In primary school, every day and especially on Fridays, I was supposed to say, 'I am Turkish, and I am righteous and hardworking,' But all those things did not actually turn us into Turks. This system is somehow creating fake personalities.

Osman Baydemir

#5. In Turkey, we have lived almost everything that could be lived; war and torture ... The war concept was consumed to its limits. But there is only one way we have not tried: negotiations, peace, and talking.

Osman Baydemir

#6. If someone tried to assimilate you for years, if your language was forbidden, if the names of your hometown were changed, what would do you but revolt.

Osman Baydemir