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| Ural Hatemi |
Sociologist and owner of the Qobustan publishing house in Turkey, Ural Hatemi, told Voice of America that "the corrections (requests for modifications) sent by the Ministry of Culture to publishers show that there is serious activity against Turkish in the censorship policies."
According to Ural Hatemi, "It's not just Yaz Publishing. If other publishers also shared the examples of censorship and the corrections sent by the Ministry of Guidance, we would have thousands of pages of documents. But we know that in Iran there is significant pressure on them, and they must protect both their jobs and businesses."
Hatemi emphasized that Turkish publishers in Iran face not only censorship but also deprivation of state support, which other publishers receive.
"After 2013, we saw a kind of opening in Turkish books and magazines for a while. After that year, many Turkish magazines began to be published in South Azerbaijan. They somewhat loosened up. However, they did not provide support. In Iran, paper support and publication support are given only to magazines and publishers that align with the regime's ideology. But ours would say they were given permission, but there was no support. Without support, a few issues of a magazine might be published, but then there are no financial means left. So, we need to look at the Ministry of Guidance’s policies regarding Turkish publishing more broadly, not just the issue of censorship," Hatemi said.
The owner of Qobustan Publishing also stressed that "the systematic pressure policies aimed at preventing the change and development of the Turkish language in Iran have completely failed."
He added, "Language is very dynamic. It is impossible to stop the change of a language. They want to direct it somewhere. Let them direct it, but it’s impossible to stop the change of a language, its interaction with neighboring dialects, or its influence. In that document, they say these words are from Istanbul Turkish. Let’s say you’re right, and these words don’t exist in our region. But you cannot prevent the entry and use of words from Turkey into our language, no matter how hard you try! As I said, language is fluid, an open system for interaction and influence. The same applies to Persian. Even in Persian, every year, new words, new speech patterns, and even new sentence structures emerge."
Ural Hatemi stated that despite all the pressures, Turkish remains a living language in Iran.
He said, "For years, they have been systematically trying to obstruct the change and development of the Turkish language. My personal opinion is that this policy has completely failed. Because Turkish is still alive in Iran, literature is still being written, poetry is still being written, and it even sometimes receives influences from Azerbaijani and Turkish dialects. This shows that the language is still alive. These corrections show that with each passing day, they are making their policies more stringent to prevent this. This means that there is serious activity against Turkish in the Ministry of Guidance and Culture regarding censorship. I wish other publishers would also share these documents and that it would become a serious topic. Otherwise, there is no way to resist this policy."
Link to the original interview in Turkish on the Azerbaijani section of Voice of America:
Ural Hatəmi: Türkcə İranda hələ də canlı bir dildir, illərdir aparılan senzura və əngəlləmə siyasəti uğursuz olub