TURKEY�S SYRIAC CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY � ANOTHER STEP TOWARDS FREEDOM
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   Midyat, Turkey; Sunday�s gathering of over 700 Syriac Christians in Tur Abdin of South - East Turkey for the grand opening of the Syriac Culture and Social Club came as another of Turkey�s easing of restrictions on its Christian and Kurdish minorities as it prepares to start EU negotiation at end of this year.
    �It is very important to us because nothing like this has ever happpend ,� screams Gebro Tokgoz over the Syriac language singers. It was the first time such a crowd of Tur Abdin�s Syriac Christians were permitted to hold an event of this size going back over 80 years to the republic�s constitution enacted by Mustafa Kemal, better known as Ataturk, father of all Turks, which put severe restrictions on turkey�s minority communities as a means of �turkifying� the nation.
   The Syriac Christians of South- East Turkey, an area known to them as Tur Abdin, is one of the few places in the world that continues to speak an Aramaic dialect, said to be the closest language to the first-century language of Jesus Christ. Once holding a majority in the area, as much as 70,000 back in the 1930�s, has steadily declined as families immigrated for greater freedoms abroad and to escape the guerilla war of the 1980�s and 90�s between Kurdish separatists and Turkish forces. Today the Syriac community of Tur Abdin stands around 2000 spread out over an area about the size of Delaware.
   The event, attended by Christians from the area and the large diasporas, as far away as Australia, had come to the historical event to watch Syriac dancers in traditional costumes and hear Syriac language songs and a host of well wishes read out over the loud speaker in the their native tongue � a language that had faced numerous bans over the last three decades.
    Recent changes in the constitution have allowed more freedoms for the community including the return of properties to emigrates which had been confiscated by the government and permissions to make much needed renovations on their ancient churches.
    Gebro Tokgoz, President of the Syriac Culture and Social Club, which is already planning to offer housing for visiting diasporas and language classes for older generations deprived of a Syriac language education, claims the problems today are more about lack of finances than restrictions. 
    But Community leaders at Mor Gabriel monastery who still only speak with reporters on conditions of anonymity are less enthused. They admit to �feel the changes� but don�t believe they can truly be free till Turkey is a full member of the EU and has the protection of law out of Brussels. Still fresh in their memory is the arrest of a local priest just four years ago for answering a journalist question on the 1915 Genocide.
    Just this week European Union head office has recommended Turkey begin EU membership talks. They have credited its reforms to the constitution that have allowed more freedom of ___expression and treatment of its minority populations though they add that there still remains a lot of work to be done in these areas and warn that negotiations could be suspended at anytime if EU is unhappy with Turkey�s progress.
   Human right�s groups have been more critical of Turkey�s changes and note that freedom of ___expression guaranteed in the constitution still holds limitations due to numerous constitutional restrictions and laws such as that which last year charged 15 year old Kurdish boy from the Tur Abdin area under Turkey's notorious Article 312, which punishes those who "threaten the unity of the State� for substituting �Kurd� in place of �Turk� during the daily school pledge that concludes �"How happy is he who calls himself a Turk�
    Mor Gabriel leaders comment that they are keeping a close eye on news out of Ankara but are quick to add that laws out of parliament and here along Arab boarders where old fashion mentality hold sway--- are not always the same. 
    As the festivities commenced inside the walls of the park � outside a group of local men threatened a family of Syriac Christians and called for them to leave the country. Police were called in and escorted the group of men away from the park gates.
    �This is why we do not want to return.� Says an emotional Christian from Germany who�s camera was smashed in the melee. �The laws change but people are still the same� If this was Germany they would be taken away but here the police talk with them, pat them on the back and send them home - and everything is okay�    THE END
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