Turkish human rights commission to monitor racism across Europe

From Will at The Other News:

The Turkish Parliament’s Human Rights Investigation Committee has announced that it will closely monitor extreme right and Islamophobic movements in Europe, including hatred and hostility toward European residents of Turkish origin.Committee president and a deputy of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Ayhan Sefer Üstün said it has launched a program to monitor the course of the investigation into the Oslo massacre.

Üstün further stated that they were in contact with Dutch authorities regarding an investigation of police officers thought to be responsible for the death of Turkish immigrant İhsan Gürz in a Dutch prison on July 2.Speaking to Today’s Zaman, Üstün said European politicians should start questioning themselves and their immigration policies in the aftermath of the Oslo massacre, and also in light of a sharp increase in the number of reports of Turks and other nationals of Muslim background being killed in prison due to alleged police brutally.According to Üstün, the committee was planning to send a delegation to various European countries. “As the Turkish Parliament’s Human Rights Committee, we are drafting a report on the reasons for increasing hostility toward Turks in Europe and on the possible measures that can be taken to combat it. We will meet with European parliamentary officials and get involved in the efforts to curb increasing racism in Europe.”

Üstün believes that European politicians, in a simple bid for votes, had fanned the flame of xenophobia in Europe by staying silent in the face of developments that have turned innocent foreigners into outsiders in European societies, failing to see that far right and racist movements had turned monstrous.

The committee president went on to explain that European bureaucrats and administrators were no more rational in assessing the right-wing threat than the politicians.

“They went so overboard with measures to protect their countries from outside attacks that they were completely intolerant to the distressed people fleeing Libya. Treating the most innocent foreigner as a potential aggressor, they failed to see what the bred and raised racist in Europe was capable of. Did such a huge price have to be paid to understand that violence and terror have no nationality or color?”

Üstün described racism as a disease that would take at least one generation to treat, stating again that the price paid in Oslo was the cost of policies promoting xenophobia instead of preventing dangerous far-right movements.Üstün said he had no doubt that the obstacles Turkey has faced in its application for EU membership are due to this racist subconscious.

“Particularly the French and German politicians have a huge responsibility in this. The came up with double-standards and unimaginably irrational obstacles to block Turkey’s membership in order to maintain the dual-hegemony they enjoy [over the EU]. These irrational efforts and attitudes of politicians secretly feed racist violence and hostility against Turks. The increasing number of attacks targeting Muslims, particularly Turks, including setting homes on fire and murdering innocent people, are all happening because of these damaging policies.”

Wouldn't the Turkish 'human rights commission' better look at all the so called 'honor killings' in Turkey , not mentioning the many innocent Journalist cast away in Turkish prisons just for trying to use freedom of speech?Or the Kurdish people being systematically persecuted?After WWII Europe recognised the Genocide of the Jews unlike the Turks who still don't recognise their Armenian Genocide.As PM Erdogan stated "Muslims don't commit Genocide"?

And finally :The European Court of Human Rights " Turkey is worst human rights violator".

Read the full story here.