Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?

One of the journalists recalled that several European and American programs envisage the restoration of some historical monuments of Ani. In response, the Kurdish architect stressed that he doesn’t believe that the Turks are sincere when they make pledges to restore those monuments.

In my almost most wished-for fantasy, I confine in a closed room every individual who has, since the 1960s, professed any sort of "envision" to do anything with Ani, and then, as retribution for their vileness and despicable behaviour, hack them all apart with a chainsaw (including Karamagarali's rotting corpse).

[Siggie]

Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?

http://hayernaysor.am/1305709807


Kurdish architect:“Turkey is Turkifying Ani and is making insincere pledges for restoration”

The group of Armenian and Turkish journalists in Kars met with architect, Head of the Center for Research on Caucasian Cultures, Ali Ihsan Alenak.


As NEWS.am’s correspondent in Kars reported, the Kurdish architect touched upon the lack of the words “Armenian” and “Armenia” in front of churches and historical buildings in the Armenian Ani and mentioned that that is due to politics.
“The Turkish authorities don’t write “Armenian” and “Armenia” on purpose and it is due to Turkey’s policy on Armenia. Turkey has adopted the working style of leaving Armenia aside as part of its policy against Armenia and it all began when Turkey took the course of denial after the events of 1915.

I think the issue of writing the names in front of Armenian cultural values in Ani can be solved through the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations. However, that will not happen because in the past two years, Turkey has been trying to politicize Ani with non-scientific grounds and calling it Ane (moment, blink in Turkish). With this, the government is leading a Turkification policy that spreads misinformation and doesn’t contribute to peace between nations. By saying Ani, the whole world understands an Armenian city. But the Turkish Ministry of Culture is trying to change it to Ane to not recall the Armenian term,” said Ali Ihsan, underlining that the main reason is the lack of recognition of the great catastrophe of 1915.

One of the journalists recalled that several European and American programs envisage the restoration of some historical monuments of Ani. In response, the Kurdish architect stressed that he doesn’t believe that the Turks are sincere when they make pledges to restore those monuments.

“That is all simply the result of pressure on Turkey and the latter was forced to accept. Ani is part of the heritage of Caucasian nations and, in addition to Armenian monuments and values, we must also remember the values of other nations,” underlined the Kurdish architect.

I cringe at the thought. Perhaps it can be left to those with a good understanding of "restoration."

[hipeter924]

Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?

In my almost most wished-for fantasy, I confine in a closed room every individual who has, since the 1960s, professed any sort of "envision" to do anything with Ani, and then, as retribution for their vileness and despicable behaviour, hack them all apart with a chainsaw (including Karamagarali's rotting corpse).

In any other country people would just restore the place, and move on. Then again Erdogan wants as much power as Aliyev, as far as keeping nations together goes, he's the greatest help for Kurdish nationalism since well ever (repression as a whole incites Kurds against the govt, by cutting the PKK from power he simply empowers the militants). Whatever his view on the genocide issue, its delusional to tear down places just to make people angry and destabilize the region. In any case imagine how many people could be feed in Azerbaijan and Turkey without the ministry of propaganda, most nations simply don't recognize the genocide; better than going after minorities and looking like a paranoid, psychopathic nationalist.

[Alexandros]

Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?




Council members sentenced to prison over park named after Kurdish poet

03 June 2011, Friday / TODAY'S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL

Members of the Doğubeyazıt Municipal Council in Ağrı province were given one-month, 20-day jail sentences, while the district's mayor was sentenced to six months in prison for naming a park in their district after Kurdish poet and philosopher Ehmedê Xanî.

Doğubeyazıt Municipality named a new municipal park opened four years ago after Xanî, the, writer of the epic “Mem û Zîn,” a book that was translated into Turkish and distributed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Copies of the book were distributed by Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay in Parliament in what was a first in Turkish political history. The “X” in Xanî's name was problematic, according to a prosecutor, who took the park's name to the Doğubeyazıt Criminal Court of 1st Instance in 2008. The final verdict was given on May 3, 2011, with the court handing down the sentences to Mayor Mukaddes Kubilay and the municipal council members from the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) for their “responsibility” in naming the park a word that has the letter “x” in it, which the court found is in violation of an earlier republican era law on the Turkish script.

The mayor and the council members were also ordered to pay a TL 3,000 each. Both the jail sentences and the monetary fines were suspended.

Xanî's “Mem û Zîn,” an epic love story, is considered as one of the most important works in Kurdish literature. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan quoted lines from it during an election rally and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism published a Turkish translation.

Murat Roha Özbay, a lawyer for the defendants, said that the letters, x, w and q, although not included in the 29-letter Turkish alphabet, are used frequently in all public agencies with no legal consequences. He noted that the state-owned Kurdish language TRT-6 station frequently made use of the “banned letters.” He said the court ruling was hypocritical, adding, “If it is really a crime, then we will file criminal complaints against the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The law on the acceptation and usage of the Turkish alphabet and other laws like it have lost their meaning.” He said they will appeal the case.

He also said they were going to petition the Ankara Prosecutor's Office and the Doğubeyazıt Prosecutor's Office for an explanation of why an early republican era law that makes it compulsory to wear hats for men is not enforced in our day.

Link

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?

In any other country people would just restore the place, and move on.

In most civilised countries, those that have an understanding of the importance of the past, they WOULD NOT restore the place -and anyone who attempted to do so would be arrested for criminal damage to an historic monument.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?

I cringe at the thought. Perhaps it can be left to those with a good understanding of "restoration."

"Restoration" = destruction. Always. Unfortunately, historic monuments in Turkey and Armenia are not protected against restorations because both countries do not follow internationally accepted conservation standards, and Turkey has no cultural tradition of caring for historic buildings, or even a tradition of thinking that it is important to keep them.
There was an Armenian plan (to be paid for by a rich French Armenian, so I heard) 5 or 6 years ago to drill metal rods into the structure of the cathedral and fix them in place using epoxy-resin. That sort of treatment was abandoned everywhere else two decades ago because of its irreversability and because epoxy resin expands when wet, cracking the surrounding stonework. Thanks to the worldwide recession that plan was abandoned and the cathedral survived.

[Alexandros]

Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?

Christian woman’s burial story full of irony, questions

12 June 2011, Sunday / YONCA POYRAZ DOĞAN, İSTANBUL

Zeynep Tufan was 75 years old when she died of cancer this month Even though her identification card from the Republic of Turkey had a box which indicated that she was an adherent of the religion of Islam, she wasn’t.

Although she was born to Muslim parents, she had changed her religion later in life, but did not change her identification card because of the hurdles attached to the process of doing so.

Since officials in Turkey determine a person’s burial rituals according to the indication of religion on her or his identification card, she was buried in a Muslim cemetery. Her son Soner Tufan told Sunday’s Zaman that her burial ceremony on June 2 was full of irony. “First the Muslim prayer leader wanted to carry on a ceremony. We told him about our being Christian, but he said he has to do his job. The imam read prayers and naturally expected to be followed, but there was a patient silence. We wanted him to finish up so we could continue with our own little ceremony,” Tufan said, emphasizing that burial ceremonies are important in Christianity.

The problem he pointed out is in regards to respecting one’s beliefs and will. “My mother would have wanted to be buried in a Christian cemetery with a Christian burial ceremony, but nobody cared about her will or our declaration because of her identification card,” he said. When asked why she did not change her identification card after becoming a Christian, Tufan said she did not want to get into trouble for doing it. “The bureaucracy that you have to go through for that kind of a change is terrible,” he said. “Plus officials question why you did it.”

Tufan is referring to the questioning by public registration officials when somebody wants to change his or her religion. “They ask you why you changed your religion. They even try to convince you that Islam is the best religion. Actually, their questions and remarks reach the level of harassment,” he said. After becoming a Christian, Tufan changed his identity card in 1996. “I completed all the hard work for the necessary paper work. But the hardest part was the remarks that I had to endure at the public registration office,” he added.

Just like his mother, Tufan’s father also avoided changing his identification card and was buried in a Muslim cemetery. He is now joined by his wife in his grave in an Ankara cemetery. They were allowed to have a gravestone in accordance with their Christian traditions, but were not allowed to display a cross. “We have a verse from the Bible there,” Tufan said.

According to Tufan, the core of the matter is that a person’s declaration should be given utmost importance when it comes to the practice of freedom of religion. He says: “If a person or his or her family wants a certain type of burial ceremony, this should be respected and officials should ease the process for people, not make it harder.”

Human rights lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz told Sunday’s Zaman that there are other problems, too. “This practice is against freedom of conscience and religion. It is also not correct from a humanitarian perspective,” he said, indicating that a person should not be in a position to declare his or her religion every time he or she shows an identity card. In that regard, he said, the religion box on identification cards should be removed, or at least be optional.

“It’s quite possible that you can be discriminated against because of your religion,” he said.

Pointing out additional problems, he said the Turkish practice is discriminatory in itself because the state does not allow one to indicate belief systems on identification cards other than major religions, like Islam, Christianity and Buddhism, recognized by the Republic of Turkey. Therefore, for example, Alevis of Turkey do not even have the choice of indicating their belief on their identification cards.

Last year in February, the European Court of Human Rights issued a landmark ruling which said whether obligatory or optional, displaying one’s religion on identity cards is a violation of human rights. The ruling was in response to a case filed by a Turkish citizen who is a member of the Alevi community. A complaint filed with the court in June 2005 by Sinan Işık, who in 2004 applied to a Turkish court requesting that his identity card feature the word “Alevi” rather than the word “Islam.”

Until 2006 it was obligatory in Turkey for the card holder’s religion to be indicated on an identity card, yet since 2006 he or she has been entitled to request that the entry be left blank. But both Cengiz and Tufan said it is a widespread practice that public registration officials automatically write Islam on a person’s identity card.

Link

[Alexandros]

Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?


Surp Pırgiç Armenian Hospital Foundation in Istanbul has six houses, stores and buildings that will be returned. Other foundations are also expecting to receive theirs. Hürriyet photo


Turkish gov’t to return properties to minorities

Sunday, August 28, 2011

ANKARA

Turkish government signs a historic decree to return property taken away from minority foundations by the 1936 proclamation. The decision includes schools, churches, stores, houses and even nightclubs.

The Turkish government has signed a historic decree to return property taken away from minority foundations 75 years ago, a decision announced ahead of the prime minister’s Ramadan fast-breaking dinner Sunday with minority group representatives.

Published in the Official Gazette on Saturday and made by the order of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the decision also states that minority groups will be paid market value for property that was sold to third parties.

The Treasury or the General Directorate of Foundations will be responsible for the payments, with the amounts to be determined by the Finance Ministry.

Under the new decree, the minority properties that were claimed in the 1936 proclamation but had been registered as public or foundation property will be returned to their rightful owners.

According to information obtained by the Anatolia news agency from the General Directorate of Foundations, minority groups gave the government a proclamation in 1936 detailing their immovable property. However, over the years, these properties were not registered under the minority foundations’ names, and some were even sold to third parties.

In 2008, the government took steps toward remedying this problem, but the efforts fell short and caused some foundations to take their cases to the European Court of Human Rights. The court ruled in favor of the minority groups and sentenced Turkey to pay large sums in compensation to the foundations.

‘Revolutionary’ decree

The new decree, while labeled “revolutionary” and a step toward “equal citizenship” by the foundations’ lawyer Kezban Hatemi, is still seen as insufficient by those who think the properties sold to third parties should also be returned to their rightful owners.

The problem stemmed from the 1936 proclamation, and the European court did not find it enough to define real estate by that alone, said Rıza Türmen, a member of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP.

Some of the property set to be returned to Armenian, Greek and Syriac foundations include schools, churches, stores, hundreds of houses, buildings and apartments, cemeteries, factories, and even nightclubs.

Minority foundations have 12 months to apply, with the Foundations Assembly set to review each case before making the final decision to return the property to its rightful owner.

Link

[Alexandros]

Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?




Ankara police raid MHP youth branches, detain 36

12 September 2011, Monday / TODAYSZAMAN.COM,

Teams from the Ankara Police Department's public order unit on Monday raided dozens of premises belonging to the opposition Nationalist Movement Party's (MHP) Idealist Youth Clubs, known in Turkish as Ülkü Ocakları, detaining 36 people and seizing several guns and knives.

The police accuse the suspects, which include Ankara Ülkü Ocakları Chairman Necmi Yıldırım, of obstructing the right to education of university students in Ankara by putting pressure on them and beating them, willful injury and acquiring illegal income. Police seized police walkie-talkies, 10 unlicensed guns, six shotguns, seven blank-firing guns, one bugging device, two bottles of tear gas as well as several computers and memory sticks during the raids carried out in 40 locations across Ankara.

The suspects include 21 students who are accused of threatening and beating female students who wear short skirts and male students with earrings as well as threatening and beating students who did not fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The suspects are also accused of threatening former MHP Ankara deputy Sedat Çevik for refusing to give them money.

Police also found out that the suspects were planning to stage an armed attack on the headquarters of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) following a terrorist attack in Diyarbakır province that killed 13 soldiers. Police say the group was unable to stage the attack due to strict security measures.

Members of the MHP's youth branches are known to be active on some university campuses, including Ankara's Gazi University, which is at the center of the recent investigation. Every campus has a leader, or “reis” as they are known in Turkish, who is in charge of maintaining so-called order on campus. There have been claims that they use violence against other students who fail to give them money or do what they say.

Link

[hitite]

Re: Can Turkey Learn Tolerance?

"Restoration" = destruction. Always. Unfortunately, historic monuments in Turkey and Armenia are not protected against restorations because both countries do not follow internationally accepted conservation standards, and Turkey has no cultural tradition of caring for historic buildings, or even a tradition of thinking that it is important to keep them.
There was an Armenian plan (to be paid for by a rich French Armenian, so I heard) 5 or 6 years ago to drill metal rods into the structure of the cathedral and fix them in place using epoxy-resin. That sort of treatment was abandoned everywhere else two decades ago because of its irreversability and because epoxy resin expands when wet, cracking the surrounding stonework. Thanks to the worldwide recession that plan was abandoned and the cathedral survived.

There is a Church couple of miles away in a small village that used to be Greek and the Church is supposed to be the oldest Church in the province which would mean many hundreds of years... Unfortunately it's pissing grounds for the drunk and Graffiti walls for 10 year olds. I love the building. Still has crosses inside it. The owner is trying to get rid of it for a few thousand lira. We suck at even putting a fence around something ancient and precious...

Nice to see you are still here Bell.