National minorities face increasing discrimination in Turkey: report

PanARMENIAN.Net - Despite March 21 being both the UN-designated International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the start of the Nevruz festival, which marks the first day of spring and has been celebrated by people from diverse ethnic communities and religious backgrounds for thousands of years, some prominent voices in Turkey use the occasion to say that discrimination is increasing against those who do not practice Sunni Islam or identify as ethnic Turks, Today's Zaman reports.

Aren, a Christian of Armenian heritage in his 30s, says that on one occasion, when he was exercising at the gym, some people opened windows soon after he started running and said that “the room had started to smell like an Armenian.”

Other prominent incidents of racial and religious discrimination -- such as the murder of Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist who was killed outside his office, and three Christians who were brutally murdered at the Zirve publishing house in Malatya -- reveal that intolerance can be deadly.

On paper, Turkey has taken significant steps to fight against discrimination. After the long-running public debates over the implementation of a “democracy package” -- an initiative to extend rights to Turkey's disadvantaged minorities -- hate crime entered the Turkish statute books for the first time in December 2013. Hate and prejudice crimes are defined as “crimes committed against someone or some group based on their language, race, nationality, skin color, gender, disability, political views, philosophical beliefs or religion.” Yet, unlike the preferred definition of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), it lacks criteria based on ethnicity and sexual orientation. In addition, the largest ethnic minority in Turkey, the Kurds, are not specifically included in the regulation.

Similarly, Zeynep Arslan, a representative from the Hrant Dink Foundation who coordinates the Media Watch on Hate Speech Project, told Today's Zaman about the project's research from the last four months of 2013. “There has been an increase in racial, ethnic and religious discrimination that should not be underestimated. The provocative tone toughened in the media, criticizing the illegalization of hate crime, especially during the Christmas season in order to target Christians,” Arslan says. She points out that most discrimination she has uncovered is against individuals or groups who identify as Armenian, Christian or Jewish. “The next most serious targets of discrimination are Kurds and Westerners,” Arslan claims.

She also mentions that popular political discourse which makes headlines also results in the increase of hate speech and discrimination.

Turkey hosts both religious and ethnic minorities, ranging from ethnic groups like Armenians, Jews and Kurds to religious groups like Alevis, Shiite Muslims and Eastern Orthodox Christians. CIA World Factbook statistics claim that an estimated 25-30 percent of the Turkish population belong to an ethnic minority, while 25.7 percent adhere to a minority religion, including large numbers of Alevis, a non-Sunni Muslim group combining Anatolian folk Shiite Islam with Sufi elements.