Tag: Turkey

Istanbul: Turkish citizens protest large presence of Syrian refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I know that we aren’t crying ourselves to sleep over what happens in Turkey, but just so you know.    Turkish citizens are fed up with refugees.  Authorities plan to move Syrians off the streets and into tent cities to avoid more such clashes.

A homeless Syrian woman on the streets of Istanbul. Search as I might, I could not find a photo of actual clashes with police.

From the BBC:

Hundreds of people have clashed with Turkish police in Istanbul during a protest against the rising number of refugees from Syria.

Businesses were attacked, windows broken and a car overturned in the western suburb of Ikitelli, on the European side of the city.

Youths shouted anti-Syrian slogans and Turkish media said five people were taken to hospital.

As many as 1.2 million Syrians have gone to Turkey to escape the civil war.

Riot police moved in to halt the unrest on Sunday evening.

An estimated 300 people were said to have taken in the violence, some of them armed with sticks and knives.

The large number of Syrian refugees in Turkey has heightened tensions in some cities, particularly in the east.

How many Syrians will the US be taking?

We should know soon.  The US State Department’s 2015 fiscal year begins October 1 and so in the next month the State Department (the Administration) will be sending its “Presidential Determination” to Capitol Hill where Obama’s wishes for refugees for your towns and cities for the next year will be summarily rubber-stamped by the do-nothings in our Congressional leadership.  I don’t know that anyone has ever objected to a Presidential Determination.

Last year there was some talk of taking 2,000 Syrians in 2014 and that seems not to have materialized (security concerns?).  The resettlement contractors have been strangely silent for months after they publicly demanded 12,000-15,000 Syrians be admitted each year for the next 5 years—did they find out that their public pleas were only stirring up even more opposition?

Bulgaria may extend border fence with Turkey to slow invasion

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is one more in our ‘invasion of Europe’ series.  And, one more story about tiny Bulgaria being beaten-up by the international humanitarian industrial complex working tirelessly to erase borders worldwide.

 

Bulgarian border police stand near a barbed wire fence on the Bulgarian-Turkish border July 17, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Stoyan Nenov

 

From Reuters:

(Reuters) – Bulgaria may extend the fence at its border with Turkey to stop more refugees from Syria and Iraq entering illegally, a top interior ministry official said on Wednesday, while the foreign minister warned of “terrorism imports” to the EU member state.

The problem border is the one with Turkey.

The Balkan country is considering adding 130 km (80 miles) of barbed-wire fencing to an existing 33-km fence along the 240-km southeastern border which, the interior ministry’s Chief Secretary Svetoslav Lazarov, said would save 2 million levs ($1.36 million) a month on policing the area.

“It would be a prohibitively facility,” Lazarov told reporters. “Our country has enough border points and those who want to come as a refugee can go through them.”

More than 10,000 refugees, mainly Syrians, entered Bulgaria illegally last year from Turkey and, in an attempt to limit the influx, authorities deployed over 1,000 police officers.

Bulgarian authorities said the Black Sea state could face an even greater influx in the coming months due to intensified fighting in Iraq in recent weeks.

There is more, including the usual whack from the human rights agitators.  I always wonder why they aren’t whacking Turkey for letting the migrants pass through to the Bulgarian border.  Legitimate asylum seekers are supposed to ask for protection in the first safe country they come to—in this case Turkey.

For more on Bulgaria, click here.  For our whole ‘invasion of Europe’ series, go here.

Bulgaria trying to save itself from invasion comes under criticism

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Recently we have praised two first world countries where governments are trying to save themselves from migrant tides rising around the world—Australia and Israel.  I should have added Bulgaria to the short list of countries with a will to survive.

More in our invasion of Europe series…..

Bulgarian nationalist party ATAKA wants Bulgaria for Bulgarians! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_%28political_party%29

Consider the source of the criticism—Human Rights Watch!

From Novinite.com:

Bulgaria has embarked on a “Containment Plan” to reduce the number of asylum seekers in the country, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Tuesday.

According to the 76-page report, called “Containment Plan: Bulgaria’s Pushbacks and Detention of Syrian and other Asylum Seekers and Migrants,” the plan has been carried out in part by summarily pushing back Syrians, Afghans, and others as they irregularly cross the border from Turkey. [Ticks me off!  No one ever criticizes Muslim Turkey for allowing the crossings of mostly Muslims into Bulgaria!—ed]

The document speaks of how in recent months Bulgarian border police have summarily returned people, who appear to be asylum seekers, to Turkey without proper procedures and with no opportunity to lodge asylum claims. Bulgaria should end summary expulsions at the Turkish border, stop the excessive use of force by border guards, and improve the treatment of detainees and conditions of detention in police stations and migrant detention centers, the report said.

Bulgaria has not been a host country for significant numbers of refugees on average registering about 1,000 asylum seekers per year in the past decade. The situation changed in 2013 when more than 11,000 people, over half of them fleeing Syria’s deadly repression and war, lodged asylum applications. Despite ample early warning signs, Bulgaria was unprepared for the increase, Human Rights Watch claimed citing a February 5, 2014 report by the Interior Ministry saying that “Until mid-2013 Bulgaria was completely unprepared for the forecasted refugee flow.”

Keep in mind that Bulgaria is not only being overrun with Syrians, Africans ‘make their way’ all the way to Bulgaria— some going through Turkey as well.

We have followed the plight of tiny Bulgaria for some time now, click here for more.  And, for our ‘invasion of Europe’ series, go here.

Turkey: We don’t want those Syrian refugees either!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

At least not permanently.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu: Maybe in a couple of years Hillary could be persuaded to take a hundred thousand or so! http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/pix/2009a/06/124413.htm

The UN has been falling all over itself praising Turkey for months for its acceptance of an estimated 1 million Syrians who have streamed across the border to escape the Syrian civil war.  Most of those leaving Syria are Muslims.

Now, we learn that  Muslim Turkey will not accept any Syrian asylum claims and says the Syrians must be resettled in a third country.   Third country:  France?  UK? Germany? Canada? US?  Which?

From Press TV.   So much for Muslim charity!

Senior authorities in Ankara have ruled out refugee status for Syrian nationals who are seeking shelter in Turkey.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Thursday that his country has limited the right only to asylum seekers from Europe. [So what does this mean?  If you are seeking asylum from say France, Sweden or the UK, Turkey will take you?  I bet there is a long waiting list for that!  Not!—ed]

Non-European refugees are now granted a temporary stay in Turkey, pending their resettlement to a third country.

Thus, it is not possible for Syrians who have taken shelter in Turkey to obtain refugee status, the foreign minister noted.

[….]

In late April, Ankara put the number of Syrian refugees in the country at almost one million. Turkey is viewed as one of the regional supporters of foreign-backed militants operating inside Syria.

Just a couple of months ago, David Miliband, the CEO of resettlement contractor the International Refugee Committee, was kissing up to Turkey too.

Lebanon: Syrian refugee camps the best solution

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As is the case with all of Syria’s neighbors, the migrants pouring out of Syria are straining the economies and stressing out the citizens of those countries.  Now, some political leaders in Lebanon want formal camps built preferably in safe zones on the Syrian side of the border.   It strikes me as a good idea too!

Syrian families arrive in Lebanon. http://www.unhcr.org/504dab686.html

 

Supposedly millions of mostly Muslims have left Syria and frankly it is silly to think that sending a few thousand to western countries is going to do anything to relieve the strain.  And, those who come here or to Europe, Australia or Canada will never go home. 

The camp concept would also allow the Syrians to stay in their own cultural zone until the war is over and they can go home.

From the Daily Star:

BEIRUT: Establishing camps is the only way to solve the refugee crisis in Lebanon, Health Minister Wael Abu Faour said Monday, reiterating warnings that the influx of more refugees would have severe repercussions for the country.

“There is no solution to the continuous influx of refugees other than establishing refugee camps,” Abu Faour said during a conference about the economic repercussions of the Syrian refugee crisis.

“We’ve even decided on locations for such camps, but unfortunately, a number of political forces opposed this solution, arguing that [establishing camps] could destabilize the country’s security,” he said.

Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas said over the weekend that the government and the United Nations had been mulling the possibility of establishing camps for refugees. The Cabinet is currently pressuring the international community to build camps in “safe zones” inside Syria or along the borders.

The United Nations has already conducted a technical survey of areas across Lebanon that could be amenable to setting up “modest formal settlements,” and presented its findings to the Social Affairs Ministry for approval. However, the government maintains that formal camps, if established, should not be entrenched within Lebanese communities.

Let the camps be built inside the Syrian border and the UN can protect the people.

Meanwhile in Turkey…..

The Syrians are wearing out their welcome.

From Time:

Turkey was home to less than 200,000 Syrian refugees at the start of 2013, but the patience of many Turkish citizens is running thin as that figure hovers around 700,000. With no sign of the conflict in Syria abating, that number is expected to more than double this year.

Read on.

And, here we learn that Turkey is building a wall on the Syrian border.

Still no sign of the thousands of Syrians that US resettlement contractors like the US Conference of Catholic Bishops are lobbying for!

And, none of them are beating up Obama as they did Bush on admitting Iraqi refugees.  Or, maybe they are behind the scenes and the lazy and biased mainstream media isn’t picking it up.