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Personal
Accounts
 in Turkey_files/hijab.jpg)
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SISTER
FILIZ BEYAZ
| She
was born at Uskudar in Istanbul in 1975. Her father is
originally from Varto Town of Mus City. She completed
her school education in Haydarpasa School with success.
She is the only one of seven sisters and brothers to have embarked
on a university education. She succeeded in the 1996 university
entrance exams and started at the Konya Selcutun City’s Theology
section. She was arrested during the demonstrations against
a Hijaab (Islamic dress) ban with 33 friends, on 22 May 1998.
Thirty of those arrested were male, the rest were female.
The following day she was released but two days alter another
warrant was issued for the arrest of two men and two women,
one of whom was Filiz.
On
3, July 1998, the court ordered Filiz to be detained in the
women’s section of Konya E for 20 days. On 23 July she
was released on bail. On 29, July at half past midnight,
she and a friend Havva, were knocked down in a hit and run
accident, known to be a method of extrajudicial killing by
the Turkish secret service. They died in Konya, on the
Istanbul Highway.
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YOUR
BELIEFS OR YOUR SCHOOL
| Today,
I did what I had to do. I went to the laboratory to attend the
lesson. But, they did not let me enter the lab. Furthermore,
they insulted me.
They
asked me " Is it really hard? Is it really hard to take off
it? Take off it and then you may go in!"
Yes,
it is very hard. Are they the great creator who ordered me
put on this scarf? No, no , never! If so, how can they think
that they have the right to tell me to take off my scarf?
They
say "your beliefs or your school? "
Do
people have to ask someone else when they decide to believe
and to live according to their beliefs?
Nobody
has given me this school as a gift. I've deserved this right
by hard-working for days and nights.
They
tell me "take off or give up". But, I refuse both. I say "NO".
I will neither take off my scarf nor give up, to make someone
happy.
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PLEASE GIVE VOICE TO OUR DEMANDS
| I am
a sixth class student at Cerrahpaþa Medical faculty of Ýstanbul
University. I would finish it in five months. My educational
life was finished by the new rector of Ýstanbul University Kemal
Alemdaroglu because of our headscarves .We are muslims and we
wear the headscarves as a necessity of our beliefs .We can not
attend to our schools although our laws protect the freedom
of belief. In addition, Turkey is a member of United Nations
and has signed to obey its rules. Please give voice to our demands!
If I can not finish the school in the next seven months, I will
be discharged.
I feel
free with my headscarf. If I do not behave according to my
beliefs, there will be no meaning in my life. I am very sad
due to this problem. I cannot do anything as a solution.
My
family is very sad for this condition. My mother is psychologically
ill. I wish all these were terrible dreams. There is not any
fault except my wearing the headscarf. I continuously pray
God to get our right to live in this world.
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ONLY
FIVE MONTHS LEFT
| We are
the final year student at Cerrahpasa Medical Faculty .
Up
to the change of rector of university, we were happy in our
faculty. After that, with the change of rector of university,
all our dreams on being a good doctor turn upside down. Because
new rector put new orders about the student's dressings. According
to these new rules, we cannot attend to school with head scarf.
But, as a Muslim, according to our belief we must put on a
head scarf. So new rules are attack to our religious freedom.
Although a lot of organisation, politician, blame the rector
of university and his staff for these new rules against the
religious freedom, they haven't given up to practise these
nonsense rules against human rights
We
are waiting the support of the persons all over the world
for our struggle against the enemies of religious freedom
and human rights.
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I
AM A STRANGER
| Today,
my school looks at me as a stranger and tells me that I am a
stranger. However, yesterday, I was the owner of these lands.
Tomorrow? I do not know what will happen , tomorrow. Will the
corridors of the hospital that I've walked for many times claim
me, again? Will the garden that I've sat for many hours at the
guard nights take me to its bosom?
Our
efforts to save the lives of patients, taking their blood
pressure.... my friends that I've competed with to take an
ECG... My heart beats that I felt when I first made an I.V
injection...Will they take place in my life, again?
For
five years I have attended this faculty with the excitement
which I felt the day I first wore the white clothes...I have
become eager by listening to the dreams my father had about
me. I have striven to see the happiness and pride in my father's
eyes and to take mummy's blessing.
When
I saw the patient losing his life due to lack of medical care,
I decided to work harder and prayed more. I prayed to my Owner
Allah not to keep me away from my way and to let me be a real
doctor that helps the others.
But,
suddenly, someone said "STOP! You have no chance to enter
here with these clothes, especially the funny thing you wear
on your head." And then the doors were closed to my face roughly.
The police stopped me entering my school that I had reached
by the first lights of the day. My friends that I had shared
the same desks for many years were able to do nothing. The
professor who had been expressing his gladness about my success
to the classroom was, now, at the door near the policeman.
He was sorry... I could see this in his ashamed eyes. The
only thing I could do was to cry out my innocence.
I am
really sad to see the ugly face of my elders. But, I am not
hopeless. I know and I believe that these days and oppressions
will end somehow, someday. They will become "memories" from
the past.
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COLDER
THAN THE WEATHER OF WINTER
| A
17 year old high school student studying every day for at least
5 hours to mathematics, science, literature...no time for leisure
because the big day is very close-this university exam.
Preferences
are done -your ideal is being a doctor so only medical faculties
are written-, the big race -exam- started, nearly in 3 hours
time everything in your life will change, a university or
nothing.
Yes.
You've passed the exam now you have right to attend the largest
university of Turkey. I.U. Cerrahpasha Medical Faculty English
Department.
Time
for registration, you registered for the first class, everything
is O.K. you are studying your lessons and getting used to
Istanbul. But also you are sad because you are so far away
from your family and city.
Now,
you are at the second class, this year lessons are more difficult
but you pass all the exams and get really good marks.
3rd
year, first semester , everything is going on in the same
fashion, studying and studying. In the last month of year
something happens and makes you colder then the weather of
winter. This is the decree of rector saying " Students with
head-scarf can not enter lessons, practices and exams."
You
are in a shock state, you can not understand how a scarf may
hinder education. For 3 years you attended lessons, practices
and exams as the other students in your class but from now
on you are regarded as a guilty person.
Then
protests begin, 20,000 students from all faculties of Ý.Ü:
walk from Beyazýt to Cerrahpasha and Capa Medical Faculties.
These protests have no benefit, you are not allowed to enter
practices or exams either.
A scene
from examination hall:
At
the door of the examination hall, everybody in your class
-your classmates- are allowed into the class, but you are
not allowed even though you have no difference from them in
knowledge or skills, except your attire, you are guilty because
you have a scarf.
These
written things are not a tale or a story, they are all lived
things in the Medical Faculty of Istanbul University.
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Note: Images
and several accounts are taken from the Respect For Beliefs web
site.
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