Opposition lawmaker Tuma Celik, from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, is the only Syriac lawmaker in the Turkish parliament. (Photo/Supplied)
Ishtartv.com
- arabnews.com
JEDDAH: A Turkish court has
jailed a Syriac monk for helping the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’s Party (PKK).
Aho Sefer Belican led a community
in the Mor Yakup Monastery in Turkey’s southeastern province of Mardin, the
Syriacs’ ancient homeland. Two other Syriacs were also detained on Jan. 9 over
allegations that the three of them provided food and water to a PKK member.
The PKK, which has waged an
insurgency for independence in the country’s southeast for more than three
decades, is deemed a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU.
David Vergili, a Syriac activist
who is also a close friend of Belican’s, said the monk was a humble person who
was much admired by his circle and outsiders.
“He was an ascetic for years,
living in seclusion from society for religious reasons,” Vergili told Arab
News. “He was also actively working for the restoration works of the monastery
in a bid to further attract Turkish and foreign visitors. It is very sad and
unexpected news to hear that he is imprisoned. Currently all Syriacs around the
world talk only about one thing — the imprisonment of their monk.”
Opposition lawmaker Tuma Celik,
from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, called on authorities to
reverse the decision and said the accusation was based on a single statement in
an investigation dossier that was opened two years ago. Hundreds of Syriacs, an
ancient Christian population with Aramaic as their mother tongue, have left
Turkey since the 1990s to Europe over security and restrictions on religious
freedom.
The 1,500-year-old Mor Yakup
Monastery lies about 250 meters from the Syrian border and sits atop a rocky
hill in a remote place. It was accepted onto UNESCO’s World Heritage tentative
list in 2014.
Turkey’s Human Rights Association
Commission Against Racism and Discrimination published a report highlighting
rights violations against a Syriac nun, Verde Gokmen, who lives alone in the
ancient church of St. Dimet in Mardin. She was threatened by a local mob, who
said they would kill her if she did not leave the village.
Its report also claimed that
Syriac churches and monasteries were “constantly exposed to the destruction of
treasure hunters.”
Vergili said there were about
300,000 Turkish-origin Syriacs in Europe. Some Syriacs returned to Turkey in
the early 2000s, but many felt unwelcome there.
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