Tag: Turkish community

  • Turkish woman seeks protection from authorities against discrimination in Australia

    Turkish woman seeks protection from authorities against discrimination in Australia

    racisim is ..
    4 October 2013 /SİNEM CENGİZ, ANKARA
    Neslihan Kurosawa, a Turkish woman who had lived in Australia for 35 years, is calling on the Turkish authorities, particularly the Prime Ministry and the Foreign Ministry, for help in her fight against mistreatment and discrimination, which she says she was subjected to for several years in Australia, seeking protection from Turkey.

    According to Kurosawa, 50, she and her daughter were discriminated against on the grounds that they were of a different ethnic background. Kurosawa, who has been is Turkey for the last 10 months, contacted the Turkish authorities, including the President’s Office, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Human Rights Commission in Parliament, when she came to Turkey, asking for support for her cause. Kurosawa received an immediate response from the President’s Office, which said her petition had been sent to the Foreign Ministry and that officials from the ministry would deal with the matter, but there is still no development in response to her complaints, she said.

    “I want the Turkish Foreign Ministry to contact the authorities in Australia over my case. Why are they covering this up? There is negligence here. I contacted the Turkish embassy and consulate in Australia several times when I was there. However, there has as of yet been no word from the Turkish authorities over my complaints,” Kurosawa told Today’s Zaman.

    Meanwhile, a senior diplomat from the Foreign Ministry commented to Today’s Zaman that Kurosawa’s case was on their agenda, adding, however, that ministry officials had tried to reach her on several occasions, but failed to do so.

    “We have been aware of her situation since 2007. We have also received the petition sent to us from the President’s Office. We will follow the issue. The consulate in Sydney told us that it was not possible to reach her at her address,” said the diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

    “I am fighting for my daughter and myself. My daughter was born and raised in Australia. My family is there. I want the Turkish authorities to help me. I want the court cases I had filed to be reopened so that the judicial bodies will see we were right in our complaints that we had been mistreated and discriminated against,” says Kurosawa.

    Today’s Zaman also asked the Australian Embassy in Ankara about Kurosawa’s complaints, and the ambassador, Ian Biggs, said the embassy has no new information since the issue was raised in February 2013. “These are serious allegations and I understand that they have been referred to the relevant legal authorities in Australia,” said the ambassador.

    Kurosawa’s family moved to Australia in 1970 and settled there when she was 15 years old. She worked as an accredited translator, got married and was later divorced. Kurosawa currently holds an Australian passport.

    “I have a 19-year-old daughter. In Australia I had a house and a good job. My daughter and I were the only Turks in the neighborhood,” Kurosawa said.

    According to Kurosawa, her daughter was often insulted at school by her classmates for being a Turk. “They used to call my daughter ‘barbarian Turk’ or say ‘go back to your country.’ I spoke about the issue with the school administrators but they were unwilling to take action.”

    But a bigger problem arose in 2004 when she began receiving phone calls from unknown persons. The callers insulted her and used vulgar language. “I was weary of those phone calls and changed my number several times. But they again found my new number. Then I appealed to the police, asking for help. But they did not help me, so I turned to the courts. The laws in Australia are based on the principle of protecting women and children, but those laws were not applied in our case. Instead of helping me, the [security and legal] authorities remained ineffectual and just referred me to other authorities,” Kurosawa said.

    Kurosawa says there is a security risk for her should she and her daughter return to Australia.

    “I want Turkey to take me and my daughter under protection. All my life is in Australia. If my life and property were secure, I would not have left Australia after 35 years. They failed to take my daughter from me but they totally turned my life upside down,” said Kurosawa.

    In 2006, a case was filed against Kurosawa by the state to take custody of her daughter. “Psychological pressure was placed on my daughter. They took my daughter into a room and asked her bizarre questions such as was I putting pressure on her to cover her head with a headscarf, do I allow her to wear a bikini or if I let her have a boyfriend. That was a very difficult time, but I came out victorious even though that cost me both financially and emotionally,” Kurosawa stated.

    The Kurosawa family later relocated to another neighborhood home to immigrants from different ethnic backgrounds. “This did not solve our problems and we decided to move back to Turkey. I cannot believe that I experienced all that trouble. I was an immigrant but a successful woman in Australia. I do not want to place blame on anyone but I think we were discriminated against due to our identity as Turks. The aim was to harass us so that we would leave Australia,” she said.

    Today’s Zaman

  • Turkish Society of Iowa Opening New Center In Cedar Falls

    Turkish Society of Iowa Opening New Center In Cedar Falls

    041210 turkish americanArea Turks plan to expand the Cedar Valley’s cultural knowledge through their new center on Main Street in Cedar Falls.

    The Turkish American Society of Iowa plans an opening ceremony Saturday for the center, 1402 Main St., intended to expose area residents to Turkish cooking, coffee and art.

    The event kicks off at 2 p.m. and will include a ribbon cutting, food, a brief film about Turkey and a presentation. The event will wrap up about 5 p.m. with a musical performance directed by Nurhak Tuncer, a graduate student in the University of Northern Iowa School of Music.

    The society sprung out of the Iowa Dialog Center, which hosted cultural events on the UNI campus starting in 2005. Society president Recayi “Reg” Pecen said 10 to 13 area families support the center, as well as a number of students from UNI.

    Most of the families are professionals, engineers or professors. They work closely with Turkish students.

    Pecen said Turkish parents, sometimes reluctant to send their children to the United States, have been pleased with what they find in Iowa. He expects more Turkish students will find their way to Iowa as it becomes better known.

    “They know New York and California, so they don’t know the beauty of the Midwest, particularly the safety,” Pecen said.

    The Turkish American Society aims to increase understanding between Turks coming to America and Cedar Valley residents.

    “We would like to have as many people as possible, especially our neighbors,” Pecen said.

    In the future, the society plans to have Turkish cooking classes, likely starting with how to make baklava.

    Wcfcourier.com

  • Turkish community warns of continued racism in Germany

    Turkish community warns of continued racism in Germany

    Sunday, 1 June 2008
    Frech1
    (IRNA) – Germany’s Turkish community warned of continued racism in the country, while marking the 15th anniversary of an anti-foreigner arson attack in the western city of Solingen which killed five Turkish women and girls, the press reported Thursday.

    There is still a high degree of xenophobia in Germany society which has to be combated through better education, stressed the Turkish community of Germany (TGD) and the Foundation of Turkish Studies (ZfT) in a statement.

    “Aggressive behaviour and prejudices are already being taught at the age of a child. Therefore, one must act pedagogically at an early stage,” ZfT director,Faruk Sen was quoted saying.

    There are 7.5 million foreigners living in Germany of which 2.5 million are Turks.

    A recent confidential government report revealed widespread xenophobia among millions of teenagers in Germany.

    Almost every German youth said there are too many foreigners living in Germany.

    Nearly every 9th grader has Islamophobic tendencies while every 13 teenager admits to having committed a right-wing motivated criminal act.

    Germany has been the scene of a series of vicious neo-Nazi attacks in recent months, especially against foreigners.

    German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has repeatedly warned of a growing far-right problem in his country, branding it a “steadily growing danger.”

    Schaeuble had voiced concern that the number of far-right crimes between 2005 and 2006 rose from 15,000 to 18,000 offenses, indicating a 9.3 percent increase.

    Meanwhile, the number of anti-foreigner attacks hovered at 511 in 2006, showing a 37 percent rise from the previous year.

    Political observers link the dramatic rise in the number of far-right crimes to the recent success of neo-Nazi parties in key regional elections in several east German states.

    Young neo-Nazis feel also more and more emboldened to commit hate crimes, knowing that police won’t charge them with an offense.

    Most of the suspects implicated in far-right crimes are juveniles.

    Hate crime experts and sociologists have repeatedly stressed that Germany’s political leadership lacked a clear and effective strategy to fight neo-Nazi and racist crimes.

    1 June 2008

    Turkish Weekly