Turkish Forum

Category: Switzerland

  • I reveal Tayyip Erdoğan’s numbered Swiss account!

    I reveal Tayyip Erdoğan’s numbered Swiss account!

    Opinion

    Burak Bekdil

    I have a feeling that our editor in chief, David Judson, will be mad at me for not sharing this scoop with the newspaper and instead revealing it in this column.

    Well… I have gained access to a document that shows two international companies, both with multibillion-dollar Turkish contracts in their portfolios, deposited unexplained funds into a numbered Swiss account that Swiss financial authorities have verified belongs to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

    The first document, endorsed by the bank’s executive board, verifies wire transfers into the account, one coming from a multinational energy giant, and another from a weapons manufacturer – both names withheld.

    The second one verifies that the numbered account, totaling $655.76 million as of April 9, 2009, belongs to Erdoğan.

    As a matter of journalistic ethics, I shall certainly avoid revealing my sources or how I have gained access to these documents, should any prosecutor dare to take legal action against the prime minister. I must admit, though, that there is one problem: The documents in my possession are photocopies forwarded from one PC to another. So, I advise Mr. Judson not to become angry with me, or I might produce documents proving his links to the armed wing of the Ergenekon gang.

    Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ was telling the truth when he said that an asymmetrical psychological war was being waged against the military. The fact that none of us could realistically vouch for the democratic credentials of each and every single member of the Turkish Armed Forces does not change the fact that political Islamists – not too well disguised as “liberal democrats” – have long been trying to systematically fight the military establishment, through means reminiscent of spy novels. In fact, this is a war of intelligence and public relations, and the asymmetrical warriors naturally have the upper hand over their symmetrical enemies.

    As a matter of fact, one principal casualty each time there is an asymmetrical war is the judiciary, which gets dangerously politicized. The grand coalition of Islamists – i.e., the neo-Islamists, post-modern Islamists, liberals, neo-liberals and opportunists disguised as democrats – looks so precisely “guided on target” that it may even prefer to sink the entire ship that sails under the name Turkey in order to destroy the whole chamber of the helmsman.

    How undemocratic can you behave in order to bolster democracy? Can you torture and shoot the enemies of democracy? Hang them en masse in public squares, all in the name of democracy? Only recently, Erdoğan angrily addressed the main opposition leader Deniz Baykal, saying, “If you cannot prove your allegations [against my party], you are despicable!” He was right.

    But who will be the despicable one if civilian prosecutors fail to verify the authenticity of the famous “coup document” that appears to be a photocopy, with its original not existing anywhere? Are “the despicable” only those who allege some foul play by the government but cannot verify it?

    The prime minister has the habit of viewing the judiciary through an entirely ideological pair of spectacles. For example, he has claimed that Baykal’s Republican People’s Party, or CHP, has defrauded its accounts, saying, “This was verified by a ruling from the Constitutional Court.” If – and naturally so – an irreversible verdict from the supreme court should suffice for a “public verdict,” then we would end up in the weird situation where Turkey’s ruling party has behaved unconstitutionally, as its various activities to undermine secularism in favor of political Islam also carry a seal of approval from the same court.

    Last week, the prime minister was typical Erdoğan again. He pledged immediate (legal) action should anyone get hold of the original “coup document.” Why did he take legal action against “coup-plotters” when the original document did not exist anywhere? As always, the motto is “all is halal [permissible] as long as it suits our political agenda…”

    Unfortunately, Erdoğan’s self-declared “liberal” supporters are no exception. Take, for example, prominent columnist, Hadi Uluengin, the liberal voice of daily Hürriyet and someone of whom I am quite fond. This is how he justified the storms around the photocopied document in his June 24, 2009, column, “Who’s wearing out whom?”:

    “Éwhether the plan to ’finish off the AKP and Fethullah Gülen’ is authentic or forgery… it would be purely legitimate if Turkey’s democrats, who have had to endure four coups, four coup attempts and several other [undemocratic actions by the military] in less than half a century got agitated by this document. They are endlessly right [about their retort]…”

    Uluengin is right about the history of undemocratic military practices in our country. But his reasoning – that even if the document were false, democrats would have every right to attack the military – is a little bit excessive.

    By the same logic, someone can always forge documents verifying corruption by the ruling Islamist elite, get them photocopied and distribute them to Erdoğan’s opponents – and since Turkey’s recent history is full of corrupt practices, it would be purely legitimate for our democrats to get agitated even though we could not authenticate these bogus papers.

    Is this how Turkey is going to become a more democratic place?

    hurriyet.com.tr, August 26, 2014

  • Open letter on Perinçek v. Switzerland case

    Open letter on Perinçek v. Switzerland case

    Open letter (slightly revised) rebutting Armenian claims submitted by Ferruh Demirmen to Swiss Interior Department on ECHR’s decision on Perinçek v. Switzerland.

    February 24, 2014

    An Open Letter to:
    Madame la Conseillère fédérale
    Simonetta Sommaruga
    Cheffe du Département fédéral de justice et police (DFJP)
    Palais fédéral ouest
    CH-3003 Berne, SWITZERLAND

    Dear Madame Sommaruga,

    This open letter is being submitted by a concerned citizen as a rebuttal of an open letter sent to you by a group called “concerned genocide scholars” regarding the December 17, 2013 judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Perinçek v. Switzerland.

    In their February 16, 2014 letter, the “scholars” take issue with ECHR’s position that genocide is a precisely defined legal concept that is not easy to prove, and that the historical record on the 1915 events is a matter of debate. The “scholars” argue that the 1915 events constitute “genocide,” and request that you re-examine the Court’s judgment. This letter will endeavor to establish that the arguments advanced by the “scholars” are incomplete and specious.

    The “scholars” assert that Ottoman “mass killings” of Armenians conform to the definition of Article 2 of the 1948 U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). But such assertion is based only on a partial reading of the Convention. That Convention, in fact, is the Achilles’ heel of the “Armenian genocide” thesis. For Article 2, while describing genocide as, in part, killing or causing serious harm to the members of a group, makes two additional provisos: (1) there must be intent, (2) the targeted victims should belong to a particular national, ethnical, racial or religious group. The “scholars” conveniently ignore these two provisos.

    Ottoman government archives contain incontestable evidence that the relocation of Armenians in 1915 was not related in any way to nationality, religion, etc., but to military exigency in time of war, which was being fought on multiple fronts. Rebellious armed Armenian groups were aiding and abetting the enemy and sabotaging the Ottoman army from behind, and the government had to intervene. In other words, Armenians were subjected to relocation not because of their religion or ethnicity, but because they posed grave security threat in time of war. Armenians in the western part of Anatolia were spared from relocation orders because they did not pose a security threat. The central government orders to local authorities made it clear that the security of Armenian convoys during relocation should be ensured, and that all necessary precautions should be taken to meet their needs during and after relocation.

    There was no intent to harm the Armenians; but war conditions including lawlessness, chaos, disease, and famine, gave rise to tragic events on both sides.

    The fact that Armenians in the western part of Anatolia were spared from relocation orders belies accusations that the 1915 events were religion or ethnicity-related.

    Russian archives also reveal that religion and ethnicity were not causal factors behind the relocation orders, that relocation was conceived as a measure of self-defense by the Ottoman government, and that the tragic events were inter-communal in nature.

    Considering the above facts, and viewed in its fuller context, Article 2 of the 1948 Convention negates the genocide argument advanced by the “scholars.” The “scholars” cannot pick and choose a portion of Article 2 and ignore the rest.

    Equally important, the 1948 Convention contains a stipulation, in Article 6, that those charged with the crime of genocide should be tried by a competent tribunal in the state where the act was committed, or by an international penal tribunal whose jurisdiction is recognized by the contracting parties. In other words, to establish the crime of genocide, a court verdict is a sine qua non. The judgments by the Nuremberg Tribunal post-World War II, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) more recently on the Rwanda and Srebrenica events are examples to such verdicts.

    There exists no court verdict, however, on alleged “Armenian genocide.” The Malta Tribunal, convened by the victorious British after World War I to prosecute 144 high-ranking Ottoman officials on charges of killing Armenians, yielded not a single conviction. Among those detained for trial were cabinet ministers, the Grand Vizier and Army Commanders. The Armenian Patriarchate at Istanbul was the principal source of information against the accused, but the evidence was too flimsy for formal prosecution. Even the search of the U.S. State Department files in Washington failed to produce incriminating evidence. After two years of investigation, all Malta detainees were released and returned to Turkish soil.

    It is interesting that in referring to the opinions of France, the United Kingdom and Russia in their 1915 joint declaration, the “scholars” do not mention the Malta Tribunal. The Malta Tribunal drew its jurisdictional authority from these three powers, and its findings were binding on the three powers.

    So, Article 6 of the 1948 Convention also negates the genocide assertions of the “scholars.” What Article 6 establishes, in principle, is that neither parliaments nor a group of academics can pass judgment on an alleged genocide crime. A verdict by a duly authorized court of law is a must. The “scholars” ignore this very fundamental precept contained in the 1948 Convention.

    In conclusion, the 1948 Convention, which is the fundamental international covenant bearing on genocide determination, completely vitiates the genocide thesis when viewed in its entirety. The “scholars do not have the luxury to use only a portion of the covenant to establish their case.

    The “scholars” note that in 1997 the “International Association of Genocide Scholars” passed a resolution recognizing the Ottoman massacres of Armenians as genocide. That may be so, but a large number of scholars hold the opposite view. In 1985, for example, 69 U.S. historians and researchers passed a unanimous resolution, addressed to members of the U.S. House of Representatives and published in New York Times and The Washington Post, refuting Armenian allegations. These were academicians specializing in Turkish, Ottoman and Middle Eastern studies. Many of these academicians were subsequently harassed or intimidated by the pro-genocide camp.

    The conclusion is inescapable, as ECHR observed, that there is no consensus among historians and scholars on the 1915 events. And that is not taking into account the views of Turkish researchers and historians.

    In their letter the “scholars” indirectly draw an analogy between Holocaust and the 1915 events. Such analogy is not only grotesque, but more bluntly, obscene. Jews of Nazi Germany did not rise in armed rebellion against the state, did not embark on a rampage of violence against the local population, did not join the ranks of an invading army, did not sabotage the German army behind the front lines, and in general did not engage in perfidious acts. Their only “crime” was not being of the “Aryan race.” Race was the motive behind the killings.

    The Nazis did not court-martial those implicated with wrongdoing against the Jews, as did the Ottomans prosecute those accused of mistreating Armenians during relocation. Nor did the Nazis deliberately spare Jews as “good citizens” in some parts of the Reich, or award meritorious awards to Jews, as did the Ottomans to Armenians. The Ottomans, having long embraced Armenians in high-ranking positions in the government, including generals and cabinet ministers, did not spread racist, scurrilous lies about the Armenian minority. And the Armenians certainly did not perish in gas chambers.

    To broaden their horizon on the 1915 events, the “scholars” should perhaps read, if they have not already, the admissions of Boghos Nubar Pasha at the Paris Peace Conference in January 1919, and the manifesto issued by Johannes Kachaznuni at the Dashnak convention in Bucharest in March 1923. It would be like hearing the truth from the horse’s mouth. More than half of a million Muslims lost their lives at the hands of Armenian guerillas who fought a losing battle relying on false promises of imperial Western powers and the Tsarist Russia. Even the Russian officers on the scene were troubled by the severity of violence inflicted by the Armenian guerillas on Muslims.

    And the terror inflicted was not confined to Muslims. As stated by Albert J. Amateau, a rabbi born in Turkey and later emigrated to America, in a testimony sworn before a notary public in California in 1989, Armenian atrocities also extended to Jews, and even to Armenian families who refused to cooperate with the armed guerillas.

    In their letter the “scholars” attempt to link the tragic murder of Hrant Dink to genocide controversy, and claim that Turkey has “one of the worst” records on human rights “over the past decades.” This is a slanderous attack aimed at Turkey, and it is deplorable. Dink was murdered by a deranged fanatic, and the facts behind the assassination are still unknown. More than 100,000 Turkish people took to the streets in Istanbul to protest Dink’s murder. Mention of human rights by the “scholars” is particularly ironic, considering that their list of signatories is headed by none other than Taner Akçam, an ex-convict and a prison escapee who advocated violence and was imprisoned for terrorist activities in Turkey. Akçam is now a protégée and beneficiary of the Armenian lobby.

    And speaking of human rights, it is curious that the “scholars” failed to mention the ASALA/JCAG terror that took more than 40 innocent lives, most of them Turkish diplomats, during 1973-1991. Not only did the committees funded by Armenian organizations pay for the legal defense of the majority of terrorists, but several prominent Armenians and pro-Armenian “scholars” testified in the trials of the terrorists. One terrorist, after his release from the French prison, was welcome as a hero in Armenia. So much about concern for “human rights”!

    Incidentally, how many Armenians took to the streets to protest the killing of Turkish diplomats and their families by the ASALA/JCAG terror?

    It is a known fact that Turkey and Armenia cannot agree on legal characterization of the 1915 events. That being the case, one wonders why the “scholars” have not urged Armenia to file a complaint with the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Established in 1945, ICJ is the primary judicial arm of the U.N. to settle legal disputes submitted by states. A court case undertaken by ICJ would require all historical archives to be open, due process to apply, and the evidentiary material scrutinized for probity. The only reasonable explanation for the stance of the Armenian side is that it finds a judicial process too risky for its taste.

    The Armenian side, instead, has over the years relied on propaganda in public arena, where bias and prejudice play a large role, and financial resources can be deployed aplenty.

    It is refreshing that the “scholars” make a concession in their letter: They agree with the notion of freedom of expression articulated by ECHR. It is impossible not to be sarcastic about their newly-found concern for this basic human right. Over the years these “scholars” attended conferences where presence of academics opposing their genocide thesis was not welcome. Did the “scholars” express any freedom of expression concern when, in 1995, a French court fined historian Prof. Bernard Lewis because he did not subscribe to the genocide thesis, or when, in 2007, Dr. Doğu Perinçek was convicted by a Swiss court for the same reason? And what was the reaction of the “scholars” when the French Senate passed a bill in 2011 (later overturned) that criminalizes denial of “Armenian genocide”?

    One additional comment in this context is noteworthy. The “scholars” use the word “denialist” to refer to those who reject their genocide assertions. “Denialist” is a pejorative term, and its use is a breach of academic decorum. It is also a sign of arrogance. How would the “scholars” like if their colleagues in the opposing camp call them “distortionists” or “fabricators”?

    To wrap up, characterization of the 1915 events as “genocide” is incompatible with the definition of this term as prescribed in the 1948 U.N. Convention. “Genocide” is a legal construct, and should not be used to further political aims. The suffering on the Armenian side in the 1915 events cannot be denied; but the suffering on the Turkish side also deserves recognition. After a century, it is time for the two sides to reconcile their differences without further recrimination, and move on. We don’t need new generations poisoned with “genocide” controversy.

    It is hoped that the Swiss government will accept the judgment of ECHR as final.

    Respectfully yours,

    (hard copy signed)

    Ferruh Demirmen, Ph.D.
    (address)

    Appendix
    SIGNATORIES TO MAY 19, 1985 STATEMENT ADDRESSED TO THE MEMBERS OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AS PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST:

    RIFAAT ABOU-EL-HAJ
    Professor of History, California State University at Long Beach
    SARAH MOMENT ATIS
    Professor of Turkish Language & Literature, University of Wisconsin at Madison
    KARL BARBIR
    Associate Professor of History, Siena College, New York
    ILHAN BASGOZ
    Director of the Turkish Studies, Department of Uralic & Altaic Studies, Indiana University
    DANIEL G. BATES
    Professor of Anthropology, Hunter College, City University of New York
    ULKU BATES
    Professor of Art History, Hunter College, City University of New York
    GUSTAV BAYERLE
    Professor of Uralic & Altaic Studies, Indiana University
    ANDREAS G. E. BODROGLIGETTI
    Professor of Turkic & Iranian languages, University of California at Los Angeles
    KATHLEEN BURRILL
    Associate Professor of Turkish Studies, Columbia University
    RODERIC DAVISON
    Professor of History, George Washington University
    WALTER DENNY
    Associate Professor of Art History & Near Eastern Studies, University of Massachusetts
    DR. ALAN DUBEN
    Anthropologist & Researcher, New York City
    ELLEN ERVIN
    Assistant Professor of Turkish Researches, New York University
    CAESAR FARAH
    Professor of Islamic & Middle Eastern History, University of Minnesota
    CARTER FINDLEY
    Associate Professor of History, Ohio State University
    MICHAEL FINEFROCK
    Professor of History, College of Charleston, South Carolina
    ALAN FISHER
    Professor of History, Michigan State University
    CORNELL FLEISCHER
    Assistant Professor of History, Washington University (Missouri)
    TIMOTHY CHILDS
    Professorial Lecturer at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University
    SHAFIGA DAULET
    Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Connecticut
    JUSTIN MCCARTHY
    Associate Professor of History, University of Louisville, Kentucky
    JON MANDAVILLE
    Professor of the History of the Middle East, Portland State University, Oregon
    RHOADS MURPHEY
    Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures & History, Columbia University
    PIERRE OBERLING
    Professor of History, Hunter College, City University of New York
    ROBERT OLSON
    Associate Professor of History, University of Kentucky
    DONALD QUATAERT
    Associate Professor of History, University of Houston
    WILLIAM GRISWOLD
    Professor of History, Colorado State University
    WILLIAM HICKMAN
    Associate Professor of Turkish, University of California at Berkeley
    JOHN HYMES
    Professor of History, Glenville State College, West Virginia
    RALPH JAECKEL
    Visiting Assistant Professor of Turkish, University of California at Los Angeles
    JAMES KELLY
    Associate Professor of Turkish, University of Utah
    PETER GOLDEN
    Professor of History, Rutgers University, New Jersey
    TOM GOODRICH
    Professor of History, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
    ANDREW COULD
    Ph.D. in Ottoman History, Flagstaff, Arizona
    MICHAEL MEEKER
    Professor of Anthropology, University of California at San Diego
    THOMAS NAFF
    Professor of History & Director, Middle East Research Institute, University of Pennsylvania
    WILLIAM OCHSENWALD
    Associate Professor of History, Virginia Polytechnic Institute
    WILLIAM PEACHY
    Assistant Professor of the Judaic & Near Eastern Languages & Literatures, Ohio State University
    HOWARD REED
    Professor of History, University of Connecticut
    TIBOR HALASI-KUN
    Professor Emeritus of Turkish Studies, Columbia University
    J. C. HUREWITZ
    Professor of Government, Emeritus, Former Director, Middle East Institute (1971-1984) , Columbia University
    HALIL INALCIK
    Member of the of Arts & Sciences, Professor of Ottoman History, University of Chicago
    RONALD JENNINGS
    Associate Professor of History & Asian Studies, University of Illinois
    KERIM KEY
    Adjunct Professor, Southeastern University, Washington, D.C.
    DANKWART RUSTOW
    Distinguished University Professor of Political Science, Graduate Center, City University of New York
    STANFORD SHAW
    Professor of History, University of California at Los Angeles
    METIN KUNT
    Professor of Ottoman History, New York University
    AVIGDOR LEVY
    Professor of History, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
    DR. HEATH W. LOWRY
    Institute of Turkish Studies Inc. Washington, D.C.
    JOHN MASSON SMITH, JR.
    Professor of History, University of California at Berkeley
    ROBERT STAAB
    Assistant Director of the Middle East Center, University of Utah
    JAMES STEWART-ROBINSON
    Professor of Turkish Studies, University of Michigan
    FRANK TACHAU
    Professor of Political Science, University of Illinois at Chicago
    DAVID THOMAS
    Associate Professor of History, Rhode Island College
    WARREN S. WALKER
    Home Professor of English & Director of the Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative, Texas Tech University
    WALTER WEIKER
    Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University, New Jersey
    MADELINE ZILFI
    Associate Professor of History, University of Maryland
    ELAINE SMITH
    Ph.D. in Turkish History, Retired Foreign Service Officer, Washington, DC
    EZEL KURAL SHAW
    Associate Professor of History, California State University, Northridge
    FREDERICK LATIMER
    Associate Professor of History (Retired), University of Utah
    BERNARD LEWIS
    Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern History, Princeton University
    GRACE M. SMITH
    Visiting Lecturer in Turkish, University of California at Berkeley
    DR. SVAT SOUCEK
    Turcologist, Oriental Division, New York Public Library
    JUNE STARR
    Associate Professor of Anthropology, SUNY Stony Brook
    DR. PHILIP STODDARD
    Executive Director, Middle East Institute, Washington, D.C.
    METIN TAMKOC
    Professor of International Law and Regulations, Texas Tech University
    MARGARET L. VENZKE
    Assistant Professor of History, Dickinson College, Pennsylvania
    DONALD WEBSTER
    Professor of Turkish History, Retired, Beloit College, Wisconsin
    JOHN WOODS
    Associate Professor of Middle Eastern History, University of Chicago

  • Wife of Swiss consul in İstanbul may face three years in prison

    Wife of Swiss consul in İstanbul may face three years in prison

    The wife of the Swiss consul in İstanbul, who hit a motorbike and fled the scene of the accident despite injuring the driver and the passenger, now faces charges that could result in up to three years in prison.

    Wife of Swiss consulate and head of Chancery Andrea Köppel (L) allegedly fled the scene after hitting a married couple in Istanbul’s Bebek district. DHA photo
    Wife of Swiss consulate and head of Chancery Andrea Köppel (L) allegedly fled the scene after hitting a married couple in Istanbul’s Bebek district. DHA photo

    Driving a jeep, Andrea KOppel, wife of Consul and Head of Chancery Florian KOppel at the Consulate General of Switzerland in İstanbul, hit a motorbike driven by Dogan Durmus İnal in Bebek in February. The accident injured both driver and passenger. İnal’s wife, Filiz, sustained serious injuries and was hospitalized. KOppel fled the scene of the accident. She later went to a police station and told police she had panicked after the accident and had driven away.

    İstanbul Public Prosecutor Resat Ugur Soysal has recently prepared an indictment, seeking a prison sentence of between eight months and three years for Andrea KOppel on charges of injury by conscious negligence.

    Soysal said in the indictment that KOppel had drank too much alcohol, which led her to lose control while driving and hit a motorbike, leaving Filiz İnal critically injured.

    Today’s Zaman

  • This Is Simply Our Home

    This Is Simply Our Home

    Syriac Orthodox Christians in Turkey

    ”This Is Simply Our Home”

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    In recent years, around 60-100 Syriac Orthodox families have returned from central Europe to Turkey. Encouraged by changes in the political atmosphere, the minority nonetheless faces a host of problems, from the expropriation of land belonging to a monastery, to a ban on special schools and kindergartens, and also a lack of places of worship in Istanbul. By Ekrem Eddy Güzeldere

    A sign in Aramaic at the side of the road defiantly bids visitors “Welcome to Kafro” next to the official Turkish sign on which the village is called “Elbeğendi”. Here, some 15 kilometres south of Midyat, live 17 Syriac Orthodox families. There are no shops in the village, but there is a café that allegedly serves the only decent pizza in the area.

    “German is the lingua franca amongst the children in the village,” says the pizza maker in flawless German, which he learned while living close to Stuttgart. All of the families here have returned to Kafro after living in Germany and Switzerland, some of them for decades.

    Among them is also the muhtar, the elected village chief, Aziz Demir, who lived with his family in Zurich and near St. Gallen. “Even if our lives there as Christians were very pleasant, something was still missing,” he says on the terrace of his house, where he lives with his wife, from a neighbouring village, and their youngest son, Josef, who attends secondary school in Midyat. With a sweeping gesture beyond the newly landscaped garden out onto the plain, he says “This is simply our home.”

    Urgent need of restoration

    The Demirs and the other 16 families all live in new houses, because the buildings of the old village, within site of the new developments, were for the most part destroyed in the clashes between the army and the PKK. As was the old church, which is in urgent need of restoration but still awaits the necessary permits.

    Land dispute with the Turkish government and Kurdish village leaders: The Mor Gabrial is the oldest surviving Christian monastery in the world. There have been claims that the monastery was built on the grounds of a previous mosque – regardless of the fact that the monastery was founded over 170 tears prior to the birth of MohammedThe inhabitants of Kafro have therefore erected a small chapel with the help of the “Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg”, as the sign next to the entrance indicates. Services only take place here once in a month, however, as the village does not have its own priest. From the roof of the old church, Demir points out the surrounding villages from east to west: “One is Christian, one Arabic, one Kurdish, one Yazidi and then another one Christian: Enhil (in Turkish Yemişli), where Tuma Çelik comes from.”

    Çelik already moved with his family to Istanbul as a ten-year old, in 1974, and then emigrated to Switzerland in 1985. There, he became an activist fighting for the interests of the Syriac Orthodox church. He wrote for Aramaic magazines and was one of the founders of “Suroyo TV”, which broadcasts in Aramaic from Sweden. He has been living again mostly in Tur Abdin since 2010.

    Legal proceedings against Mor Gabriel

    Last summer, he founded the first Turkish-Aramaic monthly magazine, Sabro (Hope), which is published by volunteers in Midyat. Also last summer, he launched a website called “We have grown up in this world together”, devoted primarily to the legal proceedings against the region’s oldest monastery, Mor Gabriel.

    The Syriac Orthodox Church claims to derive its origin from one of the first Christian communities. It uses Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic spoken by Jesus Christ and his Apostles, as its official and liturgical language. Pictured: Altar in the Curch of KafroMor Gabriel was founded in 397. 1,611 years later, a complaint was filed by the surrounding villages alleging that the monastery was illegally occupying land, some of it even located inside the monastery walls and for which the monastery has paid property taxes regularly since 1937. Nevertheless, the courts have been handing down decisions against the monastery since 2008 and have granted around 28 hectares of its land to the Turkish forest ministry; the last judgement was passed in July 2012.

    Now the only hope is to take the case before the European Court of Human Rights. Erol Dora, the first Syriac Orthodox member of the Turkish parliament, who was elected for the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in Mardin in 2011 and previously worked as a lawyer for minority foundations, commented: “We as the BDP and as the Assyrian people will do all we can to support the monastery at the international level, because we believe that in this trial we have justice on our side.”

    Just one of many problems

    For Çelik, however, Mor Gabriel is but one problem among many: “This is just a small drop in the ocean. Assyrians lived mainly in rural areas, where the land registry system was the least active. That’s why so many churches, monasteries and community buildings are not even registered.”

    In Switzerland, he became an activist fighting for the interests of the Syriac Orthodox church: Tuma ÇelikToday, the great majority of the Syriac Orthodox faithful lives in Istanbul. Sait Susin, chairman of the Syriac Orthodox Foundation in Istanbul, estimates that about 17,000 of the approximately 20,000 members live in Istanbul. Currently, there is only a single Syriac Orthodox church there, in the trendy district of Beyoglu, which was built in 1844 for the around 40-50 families living in the city at that time. The community, most of whose members now live in Bakirköy, close to Atatürk Airport, therefore also uses Catholic churches for services.

    In addition, the foundation has been submitting applications for years to build a new church, for which it needs land to be assigned to it by the municipal administration. Last year, the city made two “immoral offers” of land confiscated from Catholic and Greek Orthodox communities. The Syriac Orthodox leaders therefore rejected the offers for the time being. Should the plot in question be returned to the Catholic Church, however, they would be prepared to try to reach an agreement with the Catholic priests to erect a new church next to the Catholic cemetery.

    “You are not a minority”

    But that is not the only problem confronting the Istanbul community. Outside of Tur Abdin, only a minority of its members are fluent in Aramaic. Çelik estimates that “around 3,000 people in Istanbul speak the language, but only about 200 can also read and write it.” The foundation had therefore submitted a request to open a kindergarten with instruction in Aramaic. The response of the ministry of education was: “You are not a minority; therefore you cannot teach your children a foreign language.”

    Although Syriac Orthodox Christians are clearly not Muslims and thus should be able to benefit from the minority rights stipulated in the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, the Turkish State has granted these rights thus far only to Greeks, Armenians and Jews, with numerous infringements.

    An adjustment of Turkish laws to European minority rights standards, long overdue, would not only solve the problem of the kindergarten, but would also create a modern frame of reference for all the other issues. Nothing revolutionary, just equal rights for all.

    Ekrem Eddy Güzeldere

    © Qantara.de 2013

    Translated from the German by Jennifer Taylor

    Editor: Lewis Gropp/Qantara.de

  • Turkey protests Swiss probe against minister

    Turkey protests Swiss probe against minister

    ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey on Monday summoned the Swiss ambassador to protest his country’s probe of a Turkish official who is alleged to have denied that Armenians endured a genocide.

    Swiss laws criminalizes denying genocide, but Turkey insists there was no systematic campaign in the 1915 killings of 1.5 Armenians by Ottoman Turks.

    Turkey’s chief European Union negotiator Egemen Bagis was alleged to have said in Switzerland, “There is no Armenian genocide. Let them come and arrest me.”

    A Turkish Foreign Ministry official, speaking anonymously due to government rules, said Swiss Ambassador Raimund Kunz was told Monday the probe was “unacceptable.”

    Zurich prosecutor Christine Braunschweig confirmed officials have opened a preliminary investigation into the allegations.

    Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag on Monday called the probe “ridiculous.”

    “Bagis expressed his view in a country which apparently has no tolerance for freedom of expression,” he said.

    Turkey itself is under intense pressure from the European Union to increase freedom of speech and stop prosecuting writers, intellectuals and journalists for expressing their views.

    In Turkey, the killing of Armenians is an extremely sensitive issue. Some people, including Nobel Prize winning writer Orhan Pamuk, have been prosecuted for statements on the massacres of Armenians, but charges of insulting Turkey were dropped.

    In 2008, a Swiss court convicted three Turkish men of racism for denying the deaths amounted to genocide. The men have been fined but received no jail sentences.

    Most historians contend that the killings as the Ottoman Empire broke up was the 20th century’s first genocide, and several European countries recognize the massacres as such.

    But Turkey maintains there was no systematic campaign to kill Armenians and that many Turks also died during the chaotic disintegration of the empire. It also says that death toll is inflated.

    Turkey’s relations with France have already been strained over a bill that also criminalizes denial that the killings constituted genocide. France’s Constitutional Council has been asked late January to determine whether that bill violates the constitution.

    Turkey suspended military and economic cooperation after the French lower house approval of the measure in December. The Senate gave it the green light in late January.

    President Nicolas Sarkozy — who personally backed the bill — must sign the legislation for it to become law.

    ___

    Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed.

    via Turkey protests Swiss probe against minister.

  • Switzerland demands from Azerbaijan to accede to Istanbul Watch Convention

    Switzerland demands from Azerbaijan to accede to Istanbul Watch Convention

    51870Baku, Fineko/abc.az. Switzerland has demanded from Azerbaijan to accede to the international rules of watch-making industry turnover.

    According to the protocol of the 5th meeting of the Azerbaijan-Switzerland Intergovernmental Commission on Trade & Economic Cooperation held in Baku this week, Switzerland proposed Azerbaijan to join the Istanbul Convention to facilitate import of watch-making industry products. Azerbaijan declared its readiness to study the relevant proposals of the Swiss side.

    In addition, the Swiss side expressed readiness to increase assistance to Azerbaijan in the process of entering into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and integration into world economy. At that, within the framework of talks on Azerbaijan’s admission to WTO Switzerland asks the country to cut customs duties for watches.

    via Azerbaijan Business Center – Switzerland demands from Azerbaijan to accede to Istanbul Watch Convention.