Trikiye issues travel warning for EU and US over anti-Muslim and racist attacks

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As protests over the burning of the Koran by a far-right politician in Sweden and Denmark have gripped other countries, the United States and European Union countries have warned their citizens to avoid the crowds in Trkiye. In response, the Foreign Ministry in Trikiye issued a travel warning for Turkish nationals visiting European countries due to the upsurge in anti-Muslim, xenophobic and racist acts.

In a statement released on Saturday, the ministry referred to the “dangerous levels” of the upsurge in anti-Muslim, xenophobic and racist acts, including anti-Trkiye propaganda by supporters of the PKK terrorist group. The statement noted that the developments reflect the worrying level of racist and discriminatory rhetoric in Europe and said Turkish citizens planning to travel to countries where such protests occur should exercise caution and refrain from visiting areas with large crowds that support the ideologies mentioned above.

The ministry also suggested Turkish citizens to remain calm if they face such hostility in European countries and contact local security forces, or the ministry, embassies and consulates. He also provided a telephone number for the consulate’s call center, which can be contacted by Turkish citizens in case of emergency.

The ministry’s travel warning follows weeks of anti-Trkiye and anti-Muslim protests in Europe, mainly in Sweden, as Turkish authorities criticized Swedish authorities for failing to take action against terrorist sympathizers and far-right figures who have desecrated the Quran. Sweden’s bid for NATO membership is at an impasse as ties have strained over the past two weeks due to anti-Trkiye propaganda in the country, which recently culminated in the burning of the Quran by Rasmus Paludan.

Earlier on Saturday, the Swedish, Norwegian and Danish foreign ministries issued a travel advisory, urging their citizens to avoid large gatherings in Trkiye amid ongoing tensions. Several embassies in Ankara, including those of the United States, Germany, France and Italy, issued security alerts on Friday for their citizens in Turkey that warned of “possible retaliatory attacks by terrorists against places of worship”.

The US Embassy said in its warning that the Quran burning incidents could lead to “possible retaliatory attacks by terrorists against places of worship in Trkiye”.

“Terrorists could attack with little or no warning, targeting places of worship or places frequented by Westerners,” the warning reads on its website, following days of peaceful protests in Trkiye to condemn the anti-terrorist act. -Muslim of Danish far-right politician Rasmus Paludan.

The U.S. Embassy was quick to issue a travel advisory for its citizens last year as well as a Republican People’s Party (CHP) rally. After last year’s travel warning, US Ambassador to Ankara Jeff Flake was summoned to the Foreign Office to voice Trkiye’s grievances over the warning, while police Turkey and the Department of Foreign Affairs have advised Turkish citizens in the United States to stay away from “high-attendance events”.

Although they have been close allies, Trkiye and the United States are often at odds on a number of issues, and embassy warnings to American citizens traveling to Trkiye are among the issues in dispute. Washington angers Ankara over what politicians call an exaggeration of the situation in Trkiye.

In 2018, Trikiye issued a travel warning to the United States, citing a number of far-right and racist incidents, including shootings, shortly after the US State Department issued a travel advisory. trip for visitors to Trkiye, urging them to reconsider travel for safety reasons. .

Trkiye’s travel warning to the United States posted on the Department of State’s website highlights nationwide protests over the death of Tire Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee and notes that verbal abuse has been ‘observed’ and physical xenophobic, racist prevailed throughout the country. Nichols, a young black man, died after being beaten by five police officers. The city of Memphis disbanded the special police unit involved in the beating whose video emerged and sparked protests. Several dozen protesters called for police reform on Saturday afternoon as they gathered in freezing rain outside City Hall shouting “No justice, no peace!” and carrying signs with slogans such as “Justice for Tire Nichols”. At one point, a police car found itself surrounded by a group of protesters, who directed their angry chants at the vehicle. Protests in Memphis, Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta and a handful of other cities on Friday night were small and largely peaceful after the video emerged.

The five Memphis officers, who are all black, have been charged with second-degree murder after beating Nichols, who died in hospital on January 10, three days after being arrested for careless driving. Despite national calls for police reform after the death of George Floyd and subsequent protests in 2020, the number of people who died in the United States during interactions with police reached a 10-year high in 2022 , with 1,186 deaths, according to the Mapping Police Violence website.

In its warning to Turkish travellers, the Foreign Ministry urged them to avoid areas where protests are concentrated and to act calmly “against possible xenophobic and racist harassment and attacks, and to contact local security forces in such cases”. He called on travelers to monitor local media against the possibility of such incidents and follow additional warnings and announcements from US authorities and Turkish diplomatic missions in the United States.

In a travel warning for European countries, the ministry noted the escalation of anti-Muslim, xenophobic and racist incidents and anti-Turkish propaganda rallies by terrorist-affiliated groups. The ministry said the developments revealed the dangerous heights of religious intolerance and hatred in Europe and expressed concern about racist movements on the continent. He urged travelers planning to visit European countries to avoid protest sites and contact local security forces in case of xenophobic and racist attacks and to follow warnings from local authorities as well as Turkish diplomatic missions in the countries they visited.

Turkish officials have criticized their Western counterparts for remaining indifferent to anti-Muslim sentiments and the ideologies that fuel them, while experts believe Trkiye can lead the fight against it. Trkiye has continuously called on world leaders to take action to end the demonization of Muslims and has taken steps to tackle the growing problem.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoan has often said that Western countries insist on not taking action against rising anti-Islam sentiment. Erdoan also called on Turkish institutions to take action on issues related to Muslims and Turks in these countries.

According to the European Islamophobia Report 2021, Islamophobia was “just as urgent a problem” across the continent as in previous years. He said countries like the UK and France have become “the main hotbeds of anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobic incidents”.

“Furthermore, anti-Muslim campaigns by far-right parties in EU member states dominate discrimination against Muslim individuals and communities,” reads the report, which focuses on 27 European countries and was prepared with contributions from 35 leading scholars and experts in the field. .

The report links the persistence of anti-Muslim racism to “the backdrop of a disturbing general trend: the decline of liberal democracy in Europe”. He warns that major forces in Europe, targeting countries like France, “are always investing less in the fight against Islamophobia, and more… in the normalization of Islamophobia”.

He noted that “the normalization and institutionalization of Islamophobia by liberal democracies such as Austria, Denmark and France is alarming.”

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