Via Deutschlandfunk (Link in German) – Turkey is hosting many Syrian refugees. The Turkish government always emphasized their hospitality towards the Muslim brothers. But more and more aid organizations complain about attacks against migrants. They report a pogrom-like mood against Syrians in some major cities.
Tag Archives: Anti-migrant violence
Investigation deepens into killing of Nigerian student in Turkish Cyprus
Via Hürriyet Daily News – An autopsy conducted at the Famagusta State Hospital into the recent killing of a Nigerian student in the Turkish Cypriot town of Famagusta has confirmed that he died of a cerebral haemorrhage caused by severe blows to the head.
Kennedy Taomwabwa, 28, who was a student of Eastern Mediterranean University, was reportedly abducted from the city center by a group of eight locals who kidnapped him against his will. Taomwabwa was taken home and killed by the group on Jan. 31, according to police officials. Continue reading Investigation deepens into killing of Nigerian student in Turkish Cyprus
Hostility toward Syrians could explode in Turkey, ICG warns
Via Al-Monitor – Turkey is rightly commended for hosting over 3 million Syrian refugees fleeing the nearly seven-year-old conflict that continues to wrack their country in new and ghastly iterations. Acts of overt aggression against the “guests,” as Turkey formally labels them, are astonishingly rare. But a new report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) published this week raises alarm bells over their future. Continue reading Hostility toward Syrians could explode in Turkey, ICG warns
Turkey’s Syrian Refugees: Defusing Metropolitan Tensions
The International Crisis Group published a new report on intercommunal violence between Turkish host communities and Syrian refugees in Turkey’s three largest cities: Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.
Click here to read the whole report as PDF Continue reading Turkey’s Syrian Refugees: Defusing Metropolitan Tensions
On forced and second marriage of Syrian women in Turkey
Deutsche Welle in Turkish reports about the issue of forced and second marriage of Syrian women in Turkey, a phenomenon which started to be widespread in Turkey. A website called “Syrian Women” is giving advice to Turkish men on how to find and marry Syrian women.
“Syrian women wanting to marry – what are Syrian women like? – how are Syrian women dressed?” The website is full of sexist stereotypes of women, who had to migrate from Syria Turkey:
“Syrian women are delicate beings like our women. The number of young men who want to get married to Syrian women has increased and the desire of married men who want to be with Syrian women has increased as well. Since Syrian women do not set official marriage conditions, men can start living with them”.
Continue reading On forced and second marriage of Syrian women in Turkey
Seasonal Agricultural Labor in Turkey: The Case of Torbalı
by Dilan Taşdemir, Association of Bridging People
** Türkçe aşağıda – Turkish version below **
İzmir, a city where 120,000 registered refugees live, has a lot of meaning for refugees. For some, it is a stop on their way to Europe when passing over by boats, for others, it is a city they come to in order to find seasonal work on the fields.
Seasonal agricultural labor in Turkey is not an issue that started with Syrian refugees. For years, Kurdish workers, mostly coming from the east and southeast of Turkey, have been working in agricultural areas in the Aegean, Çukurova, at the Black Sea and in Central Anatolia. There have been dozens of academic studies, news and documentaries on this issue, and it is still being studied today. In every respect, seasonal agricultural labor is a great burden to workers and must be considered as injustice. Continue reading Seasonal Agricultural Labor in Turkey: The Case of Torbalı
Lesvos Fights Against its Role as Europe’s “Open Air Prison”
Author: Valeria Hänsel
The Greek island of Lesvos is going through a period of strong protests. Across all political camps, the people on the island refuse to carry out the European policy measures which are transforming Lesvos into an open-air prison for refugees on the edge of Europe. Groups that are strongly divided by ideological convictions, including local left wing, moderate and right wing groups, refugees and international activists share one concern: They oppose the situation created by the EU-Turkey statement.
While right wing groups are driven by racist sentiments, the majority of protesters does not longer accept the dehumanizing living conditions in the European “Hotspot Camp” Moria. More than 6.000 people are forced to live in overcrowded containers or in small summer tents and are exposed to wind and weather without adequate protection. Some have been forced to live under these conditions for more than 18 months and six people have died in Moria during the last winter.
To make this situation visible and fight for freedom of movement, there have been several protests marches and refugees have occupied space on the central Sappho Square in Lesvos’ capital Mytilene for the whole of November. When the police evicted the square, they occupied the local office of the ruling party SYRIZA with the support of local antifascists.
Continue reading Lesvos Fights Against its Role as Europe’s “Open Air Prison”
Memorial to drowned refugees vandalised on Greek island
Via Middle East Eye – Vandals have damaged a memorial on the Greek island of Lesbos to refugees who lost their lives trying to reach safety in Europe, rights groups said on Thursday.
Black paint was poured on the memorial, which was erected in 2013 on the east coast of Lesbos after 20 refugees drowned trying to reach the island in the winter of 2012. In 2015, hundreds more would die in the Aegean Sea as over a million people – mainly fleeing the Syrian civil war – crossed to Greece from Turkey.
“One can only wonder what the perpetrators were thinking of, insulting the memory of people who were so unjustly lost”
– Iva Vougiouka-Frangou, head of local support group Continue reading Memorial to drowned refugees vandalised on Greek island
Central Asian migrants caught in Turkey’s anti-terror raids
Umar Farooq wrote a piece on the situation of Central Asian migrants in Istanbul lately for HarekAct. He published another article with LA Times on that same issue:
Via Los Angeles Times – The last time Anurkhol Bipolotov saw her husband, Fakhriddin, was across a street, outside a police station in Istanbul, on March 9. “He couldn’t speak, and I asked to speak with him, but they shouted, ‘You cannot speak.’ Then they sent him to Uzbekistan,” she recalled. “Now I have no idea where he is.”
That night, Turkish counter-terrorism police conducted 10 simultaneous raids across Istanbul, based on an anonymous tip placed to a hotline set up to report suspicious activity. Sixty-nine people, all but two foreigners, were taken into custody, suspected of being Islamic State members. Among them were 17 women and 29 children, including Bipolotov and her three children. None were ever charged with a terrorism-related crime.
Continue reading Central Asian migrants caught in Turkey’s anti-terror raids
Central Asian migrants in Turkey at risk of being labelled as terrorists
By Umar Farooq
Turkish police conduced more than 1,400 raids across the country in a single week this November, with officials saying 6,890 people were detained for undocumented immigration, and 1,167 for suspicion of belonging to terror groups, either the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Islamic State, or the Fetullah Terror Organization, which Ankara blames for an attempted coup in July 2016.
While more than 50,000 people have been charged with some crime related to that coup attempt since last year, little attention is given to what happens to thousands of those detained over suspected ties to the Islamic State, especially those who risk deportation back home to countries with a dismal human rights record. Continue reading Central Asian migrants in Turkey at risk of being labelled as terrorists