page_title: Racism in Turkey
section_title: Overview
hierarchical_section_title: Racism in Turkey / Overview
caption_attribution_description: English: Hate speech in Turkish news outlets according to the January-April 2014 Media Watch on Hate Speech and Discriminatory Language Report by Nefret Soylemi and the Hrant Dink Foundation (http://nefretsoylemi.org/rapor/HDV_ocak-nisan2014_rapor.pdf)
context_page_description: In Turkey, racism and ethnic discrimination are present in its society and throughout its history, including institutional racism against non-Muslim and non-Sunni minorities. This appears mainly in the form of negative attitudes and actions by Turks towards people who are not considered ethnically Turkish. Such discrimination is predominantly towards non-Turkish ethnic minorities such as Kurds, Zazas, Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, and Jews, as well as hostility towards minority forms of Islam such as Alevis, Sufis, and Shias.
  In recent years, racism in Turkey has shifted towards Syrian refugees and Arabs in general.
context_section_description: Racism and discrimination in Turkey can be traced back to the Ottoman Empire. Such Ottoman Turkish intellectuals such as Ali Suavi have stated in the 1860s that:
  Turks are superior to other races in political, military and cultural aspects
  The Turkish language surpasses the European languages in its richness and excellence
  Turks constructed the Islamic civilization.
  With the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, non-Muslim citizens of the country have been subject to numerous instances of state-sponsored discrimination. For instance, many non-Muslims were fired from their jobs and were denied employment by the bureaucracy. The State Employee Law enacted in 1926 aimed at the Turkification of work life in Turkey. This law defined Turkishness as a necessary condition to become a state employee.
  The Ministry of Education in Turkey adopted an educational curriculum with respect to the Armenians in 2002 which was widely condemned as racist and chauvinist. The curriculum contained textbooks that included phrases such as "we crushed the Greeks" and "traitor to the nation." Thereafter, civic organizations, including the Turkish Academy of Sciences, published a study deploring all racism and sexism in textbooks. However, a report by the Minority Rights Group International (MRG) done in 2015 states that the curriculum of schools continue to depict "Armenians and Greeks as the enemies of the country." Nurcan Kaya, one of the authors of the report, concluded: "The entire education system is based on Turkishness. Non-Turkish groups are either not referred to or referred in a negative way."
  As of 2008 there has also been an increase in "hate crimes" in Turkey originating from racism, nationalism, and intolerance. According to Ayhan Sefer Üstün, the head of the parliamentary Human Rights Investigation Commission, "Hate speech is on the rise in Turkey, so new deterrents should be introduced to stem the increase in such crimes". Despite provisions in the Constitution and the laws there have been no convictions for a hate crime so far, for either racism or discrimination. Since the beginning of 2006 a number of killings were committed in Turkey against people of ethnic or religious minorities or different sexual orientation or social sexual identity. Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code provides for a general ban of publicly inciting people to hatred and disgust.
  According to Yavuz Baydar, senior columnist of the Zaman daily newspaper wrote in 2009 that racism and hate speech are on the rise in Turkey, particularly against Armenians and Jews. He writes on January 12, 2009, that "If one goes through the press in Turkey, one would easily find cases of racism and hate speech, particularly in response to the deplorable carnage and suffering in Gaza. These are the cases in which there is no longer a distinction between criticizing and condemning Israel's acts and placing Jews on the firing line." Asli Çirakman asserted in 2011 that there has been an apparent rise in the expression of xenophobic feeling against Kurdish, Armenian, and Jewish presences in Turkey. Çirakman also noted that the ethno-nationalist discourse of the 2000s identifies the enemies-within from among ethnic and religious groups that reside in Turkey, such as the Kurds, the Armenians, and the Jews.
  In 2011, a Pew Global Attitudes and Trends survey of 1,000 Turks found that 6% of them had a favorable opinion of Christians, and 4% of them had favorable opinion of Jews. Earlier, in 2006, the numbers had been 16% and 15%, respectively. The Pew survey also found that 72% of Turks viewed Americans as hostile, and 70% of them viewed Europeans as hostile. When asked to name the world's most violent religion, 45% of Turks cited Christianity and 41% cited Judaism, with 2% saying it was Islam. Additionally, 65% of Turks said the Westerners were "immoral."
  One of the main challenges facing Turkey in the field of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) concerns would appear to be the need to reconcile the strong sense of national identity and the wish to preserve 
caption: Accounts of hate speech towards targeted groups in Turkish news outlets according to the January–April 2014 Media Watch on Hate Speech and Discriminatory Language Report by Nefret Soylemi and the Hrant Dink Foundation.[23]
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