In a working-class
Istanbul neighborhood that Central Asian migrants have called home for decades,
there is horror but scant surprise that a gunman who killed 39
people in a
nightclub on New Year's Day may have spent time in their community.
Just beyond the
ancient walls on Istanbul's historic peninsula, Zeytinburnu could not be
farther removed from the upscale Ortakoy district on the shores of the
Bosphorus where the gunman opened fire with an automatic rifle last Sunday.
Its bustling streets
are full of Kazakh and Uzbek shops and restaurants, their signboards written in
Uighur Arabic script. Old men wearing fur-lined caps greet each other as women,
some covered from head to toe, browse in shop windows.
The gunman, whom
Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak has said is thought to be an ethnic Uighur,
is believed to have traveled by taxi from Zeytinburnu before the shooting and
to have returned to a restaurant there afterwards, asking to borrow money to
pay the driver. He is still at large.
The restaurant
remains open, but several of its employees have been detained.
Many Turks feel
strong ethnic and cultural ties with the Turkic speaking peoples of Central
Asia, including western China and the nearby states of the ex-Soviet Union, and
have welcomed migrants who live alongside them in areas like Zeytinburnu.
But some in the
community say its fabric has changed with a new wave of immigration in recent
years.
"Some of those
who arrived have set up separate prayer rooms of their own instead of going to
the official mosques ... they teach them things we don't know," said Recep
Sadettin Akyol, 37, chairman of the East Turkestan Migrants Association.
"Apartments are
being rented just for the day. You can't tell who's coming in or who's leaving.
Nobody informs the local administrators," said Akyol, who is of Kazakh
origin but was born and grew up in Istanbul.
The Uighurs are a
largely Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority in far western China with significant
diaspora communities across Central Asia and Turkey.
East Turkestan is a
name they use for part of China's western Xinjiang region from where hundreds,
possibly thousands, fleeing what rights activists say is religious persecution
have traveled clandestinely to Turkey in recent years.
Beijing denies
restricting their religious freedoms and blames Islamist militants, including
those it says come from a group called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement
(ETIM), for a rise in violence in Xinjiang in which hundreds have died.
It says some end up
fighting alongside militants in Iraq and Syria. On a trip to China last
September, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan vowed deeper counter-terrorism
cooperation.
"We have our
brothers here from East Turkestan who we've lived together with for years, who
love our country and who our society is not at all bothered by," said
Huseyin Sariyel, a local administrator in one of Zeytinburnu's neighborhoods.
"But there are
people here who welcome the ones who are coming to Turkey illegally," he
said, adding that local authorities needed more powers to register where they
stay.
"There are
hotels with rooms for the day, people convert shops into houses and charge per
head. If more authority is given to us we can investigate and take
precautions," he said.
WAHHABIST INFLUENCE
Islamic State has
claimed responsibility for the nightclub attack, saying it was revenge for
Turkish military involvement in Syria. Security sources believe the gunman, who
they describe as well-versed in guerrilla warfare, may be a national of a
Central Asian country and may have trained in Syria.
It would not be the
first time that an assailant with such a profile had carried out an attack in
the region.
Kyrgyzstan's state
security service said a suicide bomb attack on the Chinese embassy in Bishkek
in late August was ordered by Uighur militants active in Syria and coordinated
through a native of Kyrgyzstan living in Turkey.
"Among the arrivals
(in recent years), we have seen people who have been influenced by the Wahhabi
movement which is influential in Central Asian and Turkic countries," said
Akyol, the chairman of the migrants' association.
"We have said
there are those who are exposed to this ideology trying to reach Turkey. They
will need humanitarian help but also education ... but we have seen that there
is a vacuum," he said.
The austere Wahhabi
school of Sunni Islam is the state sect of Saudi Arabia, and the term is also
used to describe the ultra-conservative religious ideology of militant groups
like al Qaeda and Islamic State.
The Turkish
authorities have not named the suspect in the nightclub attack, although they
have said they have identified him and know where he might be hiding.
Police in the Aegean
coastal city of Izmir detained 20 suspected Islamic State militants, some of
Central Asian origin, on Wednesday. Fake passports, mobile phones, and
equipment including night vision goggles were seized.
Like other long-term
residents of Zeytinburnu, former journalist Osman Kumandan, a 65-year-old Turk
of Kazakh origin, is wary of some of the district's more recent arrivals.
"The ones who
came recently ... are harsh and somewhat primitive. But it seems they came here
deliberately," he said.
"There are
people in Turkey who provide them with the means, saying many came before and
found shelter here, undetected."
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