JINHA

ISTANBUL – Roma women gathered in the downtown Taksim district of Istanbul yesterday, International Romani Day, to demand equal treatment and employment equality in Turkey. Yesterday, Roma people called attention to the perception in Turkey that Roma "don't belong," encouraged by hate speech.

In the gathering at Tünel Square, called by the Zero Discrimination Association and the Stop Racism and Nationalism Platform, women emphasized the need to be seen as equal citizens in Turkey. Signs emphasized that Roma are not "renters" in the country who don't belong. They called for citizenship equality for one of the largest ethnic groups in Turkey.

"Roma people, who have been an inseparable part of this society for nearly 1,000 years, want to be seen and treated as equal citizens," said Sezgin Kaplan, of the Zero Discrimination Association. She said that Roma have been particularly affected by urban transformation, which displaces them from their neighborhoods and pushes them into precarious and dangerous work.

The platform also held an event on hate speech at the Swedish Consulate yesterday, at which attendees including Roma people displaced by hate crimes.

"Our society sees itself as heterosexual, Muslim and Turkish," said Dr. Yaseminİnceoğlu, of the Galatasaray University Communications Department, one of the speakers, "and it exercises discriminatory policies against those who are not 'one of us.'" She explained that the media formed a space for propagating hate speech.

The Roma people of Karayenice Village also attended the presentation. In 2005, their fellow villagers demolished their homes in the village in Turkey's Manisa province, declaring "we don't want Roma here." GülçinAktunç, the group's lawyer, explained that the lack of recognition of hate crimes and the courts' consistent attempt to blame the victims made justice impossible in the cse.

"There were 22 houses in the village. We were neighbors for years; we went to each others' weddings," said UfukDemirbilek, of Karayenice. "But when the new village headman came, he said, 'I don't want Roma here,' and whipped up the local youth. When we were out they destroyed our houses."

Ufuk said that the courts denied the case and the state forced them to live in the state-built skyscraper housing known as TOKİ. He also stressed that the displacement forced them to leave behind their traditional forms of work and gather scrap instead.

(dk-pk/mg)