Heads of Turkish speaking news agencies gathered on Friday in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus at a consultative meeting in a bid to strengthen cooperation between news agencies of Turkic countries.
Friday, 14 November 2008 13:51
Addressing the meeting of the Association of Turkish Speaking News Agencies (TKA), Hilmi Bengi, director general of the Anadolu Agency, said the association would continue to work with “a new momentum after its latest enlargement.”
Anadolu Agency from Turkey, Turkish News Agency-Cyprus from Northern Cyprus, AzerTac from Azerbaijan, Kyrgyz News Agency, and the Crimean News Agency participated at the consultative meeting and they issued a final declaration, vowing to increase cooperation.
The argument over rights within Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre is as complicated and seemingly intractable as the Middle East conflict itself.
But when the dispute descends into violence, battles are pitched with crucifixes and staves rather than missiles, guns and stones.
Many Christians believe the church in the heart of Jerusalem’s old city marks the place of Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. As such, it is arguably Christianity’s holiest site.
A church has stood in the area for 1,700 years. Due to the conflicts that Jerusalem has since endured, the building has been partly destroyed, rebuilt and renovated several times.
a diagram of the church
It is now a labyrinthine complex of chapels and living quarters that is visited by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims and tourists every year.
“Caught On Tape:” What began as an annual procession by Christian monksat the Church Of The Holy Sepulchre, ended in a flurry of punches. The church is believed to be the site of Jesus’ crucifixion.
The church is grudgingly shared by six claimant communities – Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Egyptian Copt and Ethiopian Orthodox – who have always jealously defended their rights over various parts of the complex.
Rivalry between the groups dates back to the aftermath of the crusades and to the great schism between Eastern and Western Christianity in the 11th Century.
The Status Quo
So intense is the intra-Christian dispute that the six communities cannot agree which of them should have a key to the site’s main door.
Consequently, two Muslim families have been the sole guardians of the 25cm (10 inch) key since they were entrusted with the task by the Muslim ruler Saladin in 1178.
One family is responsible for unlocking the door each morning and locking it each night, while the other is responsible for its safekeeping at all other times.
In order to settle disputes, the Ottoman sultan issued a 1757 edict (now referred to as the Status Quo agreement) which outlined jurisdiction over Jerusalem’s various Christian holy places.
Regarding the Holy Sepulchre, it defined exactly which parts – from chapel, to lamp, to flagstone – of the complex were to be controlled by which denomination.
The ruling forbad any changes in designated religious sites without permission from the ruling government.
It also prohibited any changes whatsoever to designated sacred areas – from building, to structural repairs to cleaning – unless collectively agreed upon by the respective “tenants” from the rival religious communities.
Punishment for a violation of the edict could result in the confiscation of properties overseen by the offending group.
So closely is the ruling followed that it took 17 years of debate before an agreement was reached to paint the church’s main dome in 1995.
Acrimonious processions
Monks and friars have been known to exchange blows over who owns a chapel or whose right it is to clean which step.
Religious ceremonies can appear more like singing contests with communities battling to chant the loudest.
Monks inside the church are fiercely protective about their rights
Access to the tomb of Christ – a pale pink kiosk punctuated with portholes and supported by scaffolding that the writer Robert Byron compared to a steam-engine – is particularly fiercely guarded on such occasions.
Processions on holy days regularly become acrimonious, with jostling crowds exacerbating tensions over territorial disputes that periodically descend into in punch-ups.
The smallest slight can end in violence: In 2004, a door to the Roman Catholic chapel was left open during a Greek Orthodox ceremony.
This was perceived by the Greeks to be a sign of disrespect, and a fight broke out which resulted in several arrests.
The intractable nature of the territorial arguments over the site are epitomised by the short wooden ladder that rests on a ledge above the church’s main entrance.
It has been there since the 19th Century because rival groups cannot agree who has the right to take it down.
Under the Status Quo agreement, rights to the windows reached by the ladder belong to the Armenians, but the ledge below is controlled by the Greeks.
Roof falling in?
Also emblematic of the territorial dispute’s intensity is an ongoing row which, unless resolved, could see the church’s roof collapse.
Ethiopians were banished from the church’s interior by the sultan two centuries years ago because they could not pay the necessary taxes, and have been living in a monastery on the roof ever since.
The huts of Deir al-Sultan are at the heart of an ongoing row
The monastery, Deir al-Sultan, now comprises two chapels, an open courtyard, service and storage rooms and a series of tiny huts inhabited by Ethiopian monks. It is reminiscent of a basic African village.
All agree the monastery is in poor shape, but a recent Israeli report said it had reached an “emergency state”, and was at risk of collapsing through the roof into the church.
Israel has said it will pay for the repairs if the Christians can reach agreement on them, but this seems unlikely, due to a long-running ownership dispute between Ethiopian monks and their Egyptian counterparts.
Over the years, this dispute has been played out on various battlefields, including Israel’s highest courts.
So intense has the argument become that when a monk moved a chair out of the sunshine into a shadier area during a heat-wave six years ago, his action was seen as an attempted land-grab.
A fight broke out that left several monks needing hospital treatment.
Such skirmishes may seem nonsensical, but are all too common an occurrence at Christianity’s most revered shrine.
Greta Baghdasaryan is calling for laws protecting women
Armenia is failing to tackle “pervasive” violence and domestic abuse against women, according to a report by rights group Amnesty International.
The group says studies estimate that “over quarter of Armenian women have been hit or beaten by a family member”.
It also warns that, according to some data, about two thirds of women may have experienced psychological abuse.
The BBC has contacted the Armenian foreign ministry but has not received a response to the report.
Amnesty calls on the Armenian authorities to provide support for women leaving violent relationships, and to draft new legislation to combat domestic violence.
Stigma of rape
“Women in Armenia suffer disproportionately from violence and abuse at home and at work, but this is seldom understood as a violation of their basic human rights,” says Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK.
“The preservation of the family unit comes at the expense of women’s rights, their safety and even their lives,” says Ms Allen.
Greta Baghdasaryan, an Armenian woman who suffered domestic violence describes how she felt “afraid of the consequences of complaining”.
“My neighbours saw my bruises but who will listen to them now? It never occurred to me that I could turn to the police,” Greta said.
Amnesty says its report, Countering violence in the family in Armenia, looks at case studies and the background to social attitudes among Armenians.
It is based on testimonies from the databases of Armenian women’s organisations, reports in the Armenian media, and interviews with some women.
It cites the stigma of rape victims and the reluctance of police to investigate domestic violence cases as hurdles.
Amnesty calls for “a real sea-change in attitudes” across Armenia, from initial protection for abused women with shelter, to the criminalisation of domestic violence.
guardian.co.uk, The Guardian, Monday November 10 2008
Universities are being asked to set up surveillance units to monitor the movements of international students in a government-led crackdown on bogus student immigration scams, academics say. New rules to force universities to report overseas students who miss too many lectures to immigration officers will harm the academic-student relationship because lecturers are being asked to act in a “police-like” manner, according to a group of 200 academics and activists opposing the moves.
A letter to the Guardian, organised by Ian Grigg-Spall, academic chair of the National Critical Lawyers Group and signed by leading academic lawyers, the head of the lecturers’ union and Tony Benn, claims that the rules could breach the European convention on human rights, which guarantees the individual’s right to privacy. “This police-like surveillance is not the function of universities and alters the educational relationship between students and their teachers in a very harmful manner,” it says. “University staff are there to help the students develop intellectually and not to be a means of sanctioning these students.”
The rules will require all universities to obtain a licence to admit students from outside the EU. They will then have to sponsor students, who will be required to have their fingerprints taken and be issued with ID cards. Lecturers will have to report any student who misses 10 or more lectures or seminars. Students will also have to prove they have funds to cover fees plus £800 a month for the duration of their courses. Universities have separately raised concerns that the system of registering overseas students, which is planned to take place at six centres around the country, will struggle to cope.
About 350,000 overseas students attend British universities every year. Universities are heavily dependent on the £2.5bn a year they pay in fees.
Almost 300 bogus colleges have been uncovered in the past three years, many involved in immigration scams.
Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: “We have grave concerns that new rules on monitoring foreign students have been pulled together without any consultation with the people who would implement them. We do not believe it is appropriate or effective to task colleges and universities with the policing of immigration.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “Those who come to Britain must play by the rules and benefit the country. This new route for students will ensure we know exactly who is coming here to study and stamp out bogus colleges who facilitate the lawbreakers.
“International students contribute £2.5bn to the UK economy in tuition fees alone. The student tier of the points system means Britain can continue to recruit good students from outside Europe.”
Tallinn, November 14 – By recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Moscow has opened the door for an expansion of pan-Turkist activity in the North Caucasus, thus falling into a trap set by Western countries when they recognized Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia and setting the stage for a new “parade of sovereignties” in the North Caucasus.
And consequently, however much the Russian moves in Georgia corresponded to Russia’s national interests in the short term, commentator Igor Bokov argues in an essay posted online this week, they could prove fatal to Russian control of the broader region unless Moscow takes preventive measures (www.apn.ru/publications/article20992.htm).
In recent months, many analysts have focused on the growing activism of Circassian groups in the North Caucasus not only because of their support for the independence of Abkhazia and opposition to the Sochi Olympics but also because of the large and influential Circassian diasporas in Turkey and Jordan.
Much less attention has been given to the Turkic language groups in the region, which include the Karachay, Balkars, Nogays and Kumyks, but because of their location near Russia’s southern border and the activities of Turks abroad, they may prove even more important in the political development of the Caucasus in the coming months, the Moscow researcher argues.
Like many Russian analysts, Bokov discusses these trends in terms of what he sees as a broader effort by the West to promote the disintegration of multi-national states like the Russian Federation in order to strengthen the power of capitalist economics by weakening any alternative political arrangements.
But despite that, his article represents an intriguing contribution to the understanding of the Caucasus not only because of what he writes about two major Turkic groups in the North Caucasus but also because of what he says about the “unofficial” efforts by Turkey and other countries to reach out to them.
The Turkic-speaking Balkars, who form 10 percent of the population of Kabardino-Balkaria, have nonetheless formed a Council of Elders of the Balkar People and demanded that the constitution of that republic be amended to give them equal representation in the parliament to the much larger Kabardinian (Circassian) and Russian communities.
If that does not happen by January 31, 2009, this group says, the Council of Elders has declared, then it will proclaim the independence of Balkaria, an action that would undermine not only all the other multi-national republics in the North Caucasus but create a new hotspot for Moscow there.
What makes this movement intriguing, Bokov says, is not just the small size of the Balkar community but the fact that most of the leaders of the Balkar Council of Elders are militia officers who were fired after Arsen Kanokov became president of the republic and who seek to return to power and a new element in their ideology.
For the first time ever, the Balkars are saying “we are not simply a minority, there are 500 million of us” – “the first time in history of Russia or at least post-Soviet Russia,” the Moscow analyst says, when an openly “pan-Turkist” ideological agenda was articulated in the region with such vigor.
The situation in neighboring Karachayevo-Cherkessia represents another Turkic challenge, Bokov suggests. There, “the Turkic ethnos, the Karachay, is the dominant one, and the Cherkess [Circassians] the minority. But again the Turkic group is advancing its interests by ignoring the practice of giving the second most powerful position in the republic to a Cherkess.
Bokov argues that Turkey and other countries interested in weakening Russia. While Ankara carefully avoids public support of such groups lest it offend the Europeans or stimulate its own Kurdish minority, various groups in Turkey are increasingly active because “what is impossible at the official level is completely permissible at others.”
He points to groups like TIKA, the Turkish Agency for Cooperation and Development, Turksoy, an organization involved in cultural ties with Turkic peoples abroad, and Tusam, an information-analytic center supported by the metal workers union, as being especially active in this regard.
But he suggests that pan-Turkist ideas are being pushed not only by Turkey but by various Western countries and by both Georgia and Ukraine, who have an obvious interest in weakening Moscow’s influence and power in the region. And he concludes by arguing that Moscow must be prepared to counter all these groups.
The Germany Meets Turkey Symposium on Cultural Diplomacy Berlin, 26 – 30 January 2008
The Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (ICD) is currently seeking applicants for participation in The Germany Meets Turkey Symposium on Cultural Diplomacy in Berlin between the 26th and 30th of January 2009.
=== About the Symposium ===
The weeklong symposium will offer diverse participants the opportunity to explore and improve diplomacy at the level of social relations between Germany and Turkey. Participants will meet in some of Berlin’s most
prominent sites, where the issues of cultural diplomacy between the two countries are most closely felt: the Bundestag, the Auswärtiges Amt, the Kreuzberg Museum, and Berlin City Hall. Symposium workshops and
discussions with experts will cover not only legal and institutional aspects of the complex relationship between the two societies but will also examine firsthand the daily effect of this relationship as well as mutual cultural contributions.
=== About the Organizers ===
The ICD is an international, not-for-profit, non-governmental organization working to improve intercultural relations by organizing and researching initiatives that facilitate intercultural exchange. Germany Meets
Turkey-A Forum for Young Leaders is an interdisciplinary network which organizes bilateral events such as yearly study tours and whose activities are supported by the Istanbul Policy Center at Sabanci University as well as the Robert Bosch Stiftung in Germany. More detailed information about the ICD can be found at:
www.culturaldiplomacy.org
=== How to Apply ===
The Symposium is designed especially for young academics and advanced university students from both Turkey and Germany. Applicants from other countries with a strong interest and background in Turkish or German studies are also eligible for consideration. An application form, as well as more detailed information about the GMT Symposium can be found at:
If you have any further questions, or require any more information, please do not hesitate to contact me at:
gmt.symp@culturaldiplomacy.org
With kind regards,
Alex Balistreri
Program Director – Germany Meets Turkey Symposium
————
*** Aufruf zur Bewerbung ***
The Germany Meets Turkey Symposium on Cultural Diplomacy
Berlin, 26. – 30. Januar 2009
Das Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (ICD) sucht derzeit Bewerber für die Teilnahme am Programm Germany Meets Turkey: Symposium on Cultural Diplomacy in Berlin vom 26. bis 30. Januar 2009.
=== Über das Symposium ===
Das einwöchige Symposium wird unterschiedlichen Teilnehmern die Gelegenheit bieten, Diplomatie auf der Ebene sozialer Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und der Türkei zu erforschen und zu verbessern. Die Teilnehmer werden an einigen der prominentesten Orte in Berlin, an denen die Probleme kultureller
Diplomatie zwischen der Türkei und Deutschland am spürbarsten sind, zusammenkommen: im Bundestag, im Auswärtigen Amt, im Kreuzberg Museum und im Berliner Rathaus. Die Workshops und Diskussionen des Symposiums werden nicht nur rechtliche und institutionelle Aspekte der komplexen Beziehung zwischen
beiden Gesellschaften näher betrachten, sondern auch Gelegenheit bieten, die täglichen Auswirkungen dieser Beziehung und ihre wechselseitigen kulturellen Beiträge persönlich zu untersuchen.
=== Über die Organisatoren ===
Das ICD ist eine internationale, gemeinnützige Nichtregierungsorganisation mit dem Ziel der Verbesserung der interkulturellen Beziehungen durch die Organisation von Veranstaltungen und Förderung von Initiativen mit dem Ziel der Verbesserung des interkulturellen Austauschs. Germany Meets Turkey – A Forum for Young Leaders ist ein interdisziplinäres Netzwerk, das bilaterale Veranstaltungen, wie z. B. jährliche Studienreisen, organisiert und dessen Aktivitäten vom Istanbul Politikzentrum der Sabanci Universität und der Robert Bosch Stiftung in Deutschland unterstützt werden. Weitere Informationen zum ICD können Sie unter folgendem Link finden:
www.culturaldiplomacy.org
=== Bewerbung ===
Das Symposium ist besonders auf junge Akademiker und fortgeschrittene Universitätsstudenten aus der Türkei und Deutschland zugeschnitten. Interessierte Bewerber aus anderen Ländern, die einen Hintergrund in
Türkeistudien oder Germanistik haben, werden ebenfalls berücksichtigt. Bewerbungsunterlagen und weitere ausführliche Informationen über das GMT Symposium finden Sie unter:
Sollten Sie weitere Fragen haben oder zusätzliche Informationen benötigen, kontaktieren Sie uns bitte unter:
gmt.symp@culturaldiplomacy.org
Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Alex Balistreri
Programm Direktor – Germany Meets Turkey Symposium
