Happy Halloween from Turkey

Happy Halloween everyone! It has rained here all day long, so it was a perfect day to stay inside and carve a watermelon jack o'lantern. Why not carve a pumpkin? Well, the pumpkins here that we have seen are white and have deep grooves that we thought might be too difficult to carve a face into. A watermelon was a tasty alternative.

The finished product...kind of happy, kind of scary, kind of funny

Sharing our holiday cheer with the neighbors

BC's attempt at carving "Turkey"

The fireworks show was great last night! They were shot from 6 barges in the middle of the Bosphorus, which is the strait that divides the European and Asian sides of Istanbul. The Bosphorus Bridge was also lit with red lights and had a fireworks waterfall cascading from it. It was 180 degrees of fireworks! After the show was over there was dancing and a huge sing along to a patriotic Turkish song.

Happy Cumhuriyet Bayram

Today is Cumhuriyet Bayram, Turkey's Republic Day.

On October 29th, 1923, the Turkish constitution was ammended and Turkey became a republic. This officially marked the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled from 1300 to 1923.

From what we've seen so far, Cumhuriyet Bayram is celebrated very similar to July 4th. Offices, schools, and government buildings are closed, Turkish flags are hanging, there are different activities all over town, and even fireworks tonight on the Bosphorus.

We're not that far from home

This is the first and only US college paraphernalia that we've seen here. Random.

Today's Zaman Article

Below is a recent article from Today's Zaman, a local Istanbul publication:

Court ruling puts pressure on Turkey over refugee rights
A judgment this week against Turkey by the European Court of Human Rights over two Iranian refugees is likely to force Turkey to accelerate its efforts to regulate its policy on refugees, asylum seekers and migration.

Turkey imposes limitations on accepting asylum seekers based on their country of origin and refuses to grant asylum to people of non-European origin as refugees, but Turkey is one of the hot spots of refugees and asylum seekers. According to the Human Rights Research Association (IHAD), last month 2,618 refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants were detained for violating border regulations, and 378 were deported. Experts believe that some of these deportations constitute violations of universal human rights principles, as shown in the recent ruling of the European court regarding the two Iranian refugees, whom Turkey attempted to deport without reviewing their applications.

Özlem Dalkıran from the Helsinki Citizens Assembly (HYD) refugee support program told Today's Zaman that the recent case in the European court is actually an exemplary case that points out all of the shortcomings of Turkey's refugee policy.

“Although compared to a couple of years ago, the situation is relatively better. At least the media and society are able to understand the importance of the issue a little bit more, but Turkey has a long way to go,” she said.

A typical example

The European court announced in a press statement on Tuesday that it had ruled against Turkey on charges of trying to deport two Iranian nationals, Mohsen Abdolkhani and Hamid Karimnia, although they were recognized as refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

As members of the People's Mojahedin organization they left Iran and entered a refugee camp in Iraq. After the closure of the camp they came to Turkey, where they were arrested and deported to Iraq, but they immediately re-entered Turkey.

They were convicted of illegal entry into Turkey, and Turkish authorities attempted to deport them to Iran on June 28, 2008. Authorities were unsuccessful as the Iranian authorities refused their admission. The two asylum seekers requested temporary asylum but have yet to receive an answer.

“The Court was struck by the fact that both the administrative and judicial authorities had remained totally passive regarding the applicants' serious allegations of a risk of ill-treatment if returned to Iraq or Iran. Moreover, by failing to consider the applicants' requests for temporary asylum, to notify them of the reasons for not taking their asylum requests into consideration and to authorize them to have access to legal assistance (despite their explicit request for a lawyer) while in police detention in Muş, the national authorities had prevented the applicants from raising their allegations. What was more, the applicants could not even apply to the authorities for annulment of the decision to deport them as they had never been served with the deportation orders. Nor had they been notified of the reasons for their threatened removal from Turkey,” the European court statement indicated.

The European court also fined Turkey 20,000 euros for each applicant.

Speaking to Today's Zaman, Metin Çorabatır from the UNCHR office in Turkey said the decision is likely to set a precedent.

“Although the decision is related with the two applicants, there are 10 similar files in the court,” he said, adding that the shortcomings of Turkey's asylum system are reflected in the European court decision. “We are ready to help the Turkish government overcome these gaps,” he said.

Turkey is under the process of preparing a new legislation to address the issue of refugees and asylum seekers. Its civil society organizations like the Human Rights Association (İHD), Association for Solidarity with Refugees (MÜLTECİ-DER), Amnesty International and İHAD are also trying to form a platform for cooperation regarding the problems of refugees. Besides that, Turkey is under heavy pressure from the European Union to sign readmission agreements that will force it to take back refugees rejected by Europe after getting there through Turkey. European and Turkish officials will hold meetings in October to work out the technical details of a possible arrangement to this purpose.


Link to the article.

Problem çok var

Turkiye'de Türkçe öğreniyoruz. Problem çok var. Çok zor.

We are studying Turkish in Turkey. There are many problems. It is very difficult.

Named that tune

Remember the "jingle" post from a few weeks ago? We had been wanting to figure out where the song was coming from and what they were selling. Well...we found out.

We have a gas stove in the kitchen that uses a gas tank (common in Turkey). Last week we were making dinner and the flame went out on the stove. So, we called our building attendant and he said he would call the company that replaces the gas tank for us. About 15 minutes later we heard the "jingle" coming down our street...and what do you know- it's for Ay Gaz which is the local gas company.

Ay Gaz frequently drives down the streets of town playing their jingle so if anyone's gas tank is empty they can go outside and replace it. It's simple!

Lance Armstrong watch out

There are 4 small islands south of Istanbul that are part of the Prince's Islands that you can visit by ferry. Today we visited Buyukada, which is the largest island. Cars are not allowed there, so to go around the island you either walk, rent bikes, or take a horse drawn carriage. We opted to rent bikes.

The island is beautiful, with many great old summer homes, beaches and cafes. Because of the beauty, I decided it would be a good idea to get out our video camera and tape a little bit of our ride. This video will give you an idea of how fun the ride was......

I'm fine. Really. I mainly hit my knee and elbow, and scraped up my hands. As I'm going down the hill before I crash, there are 4 tourists on the left. You can't hear it on the video, but after I crashed I got a collective "ooohhhhhhhhhh."

It was still a fun day. If you're going to crash, you might as well get it on video.

(Posted by BC, for some reason it wouldn't let me post video under my name.)

Tears of Joy or of Tear Gas?

We were on a main road early this afternoon, and BC asked if my eyes were burning because his were. My eyes were not burning, but my nose was and I was sneezing. We continued walking and then came upon a group of protesters coming from a side street. It was then that we realized the reason our eyes and noses were burning was because tear gas was in the air. The oncoming protesters were getting ready to march so we quickly went down another street.

We walked down that street for a while seeing people pass us who were crying and sneezing and coughing because of the tear gas.

We reached a main street that leads to Taksim (a big square downtown) and noticed that traffic was being redirected because the police were blocking the street. There was hardly anyone walking down the street like we were- mostly just shop owners. I started to feel uneasy. There was a police helicopter hovering over us up above. We stopped at one point because a group of police men had their tear gas guns ready and masks on walking towards us. I gave a shop owner a look of desperation and asked if we could come inside his shop just as the tear gas was fired towards protestors coming down a side street. BC and I along with several local Turkish men went in the store and closed the door behind us. We waited for a few minutes, and even through the closed door the tear gas was hurting our eyes and nose. We bought water from the nice shop owner, and left as the commotion died down.

When we walked by Taksim, the police had it completely surrounded and barricaded. As we continued walking, trash cans were turned over, and bus stops and police stations had broken glass.

The people were protesting the International Monetary Fund, which is holding a two day meeting in Istanbul today and tomorrow. The IMF is holding their annual meeting to discuss ways to battle poverty and avoid another global economic collapse like 2008. Turkey is one of the world’s 20 wealthiest economies, but a huge income gap exists. Recent government statistics show that 1 in 5 Turkish people live in poverty. The lower class has been hit hard by the economic downturn. (Taken from CNN article)

We are fine, but it was a little scary because we almost found ourselves caught in between protestors and police several times, although unintentionally. Thanks to the shop owner that let us in, mine are mostly tears of joy with a few minor tears of tears gas remaining.

Update:  Yahoo News has posted a gallery of photos from today's protests:  Link to the gallery