Turkey has been pre-occupied with violence after seemingly innocuous disagreements resulted in ethnic clashes. Last week, a Turkish mob attacked a Roma neighborhood in Manisa’s Selendi district in response to an argument over smoking indoors. While Roma who have been resettled condemn the racism in Seslendi, local Turks argue they are not guilty of any discrimination
As local Roma were “exiled” in Manisa on Saturday in the aftermath of ethnic clashes, other locals claimed some Roma families were “as dangerous as gangs” and rejected claims the violence was connected to discrimination.
A patron at the teahouse in Manisa’s Seslendi district where the conflict began blamed the media for “showing Roma people as victims and other locals of Selendi as violent,” daily Radikal reported Sunday.
Teahouse owner Musa Y?ld?z said he warned Burhan Uçkun, a local Roma man, on New Year’s Eve not to smoke inside because of the recent ban on indoor smoking.
“He swore at me and hit me. I took a blow to my ear and my brother was also wounded in the head. His father swore at everyone, to our mothers, wives and mosques. That is why people reacted,” Radikal quoted Y?ld?z as saying. After the fight over smoking, the group went to the police department.
Meanwhile, Uçkun’s father, Nejdet Uçkun, died of cardiac arrest the same day.
Uçkun previously denied the quarrel over smoking and said the fight started when the owner of the teahouse refused to serve him tea.
Murat Y?ld?z, another local, told Radikal that Roma attacked them first. The teahouses’ patrons all agreed Seslendi’s Roma were pawn brokers, involved in petty crime, swore at people and drank lots of alcohol.
“The man who died, Nejdet Uçkun, swore at God all the time and God gave him what he deserved,” said ?brahim Dönmez, a retired imam in Selendi. Dönmez said the deceased was not ostracized by locals of the district despite having killed a man 25 years ago. “If we were racists, why did we let him live here then?” he asked.
Ethem Demirci, a retired teacher, said Roma women were carrying guns, claiming locals had left town because of pressure from the local Roma.
Due to the Selendi clashes, 13 Roma families were moved to the nearby district of Gördes, while seven families were sent to the Salihli district Saturday.
Those resettled in Salihli were greeted by local Roma with drums and dancing. Manisa’s Governorate rented houses for 28 people from the seven families, paying a year’s worth of rent. While entering Salihli, people shouted, “Down with Selendi.”
Selendi Mayor Nurullah Sava?, however, called on Roma people to return to Selendi. “We can live together as we have lived in peace until this point,” he said. “We never wanted them to go. There may be provocateurs in all communities; we are sorry about that,” daily Milliyet quoted him as saying Sunday. Sava? said he believed the residents of Selendi would agree with him.
Meanwhile, on a visit Sunday to Selendi, Mehmet Ekici, vice president of the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, and the deputy chairman of Parliament’s Human Rights Commission, said the events “have to be patched up. The state, politics and the society will carry out such a patching up,” Anatolia news agency quoted Ekici as saying.
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