Press Release
Pregnant Woman and Children Killed in Fire in Turkey’s Syrian
Refugee Camp are Victims of Erdogan’s Inhuman Nationalistic System
On Tuesday 15th January 2013, Reuters reported that
a fire broke out in a tent for Syrian refugees in South Eastern Turkey killing
a pregnant woman and three of her children. According to Turkish officials, the
fire at the Telhamut refugee camp in Turkey’s Sanliurfa province was
caused by an electric heater in the family’s tent. In December, four children
died in a fire in the same camp, while last July two people were killed when a
fire broke out at the Yayladagi camp in the Hatay province of the country. The
state of these refugee camps have been described as appalling by residents who
are living lives of desperation with food shortages, lack of clean water, and
inadequate medical services. This is alongside residing in flimsy tents that
are unable to protect them from the freezing winter temperatures. According to
the UN, ¾ of Syria’s
refugees are women and children. Further to this, refugee families in Gaziantep and Hatay face
rental prices of double or even triple the standard levels when seeking to rent
houses.
Dr. Nazreen Nawaz, Member of The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir commented, “The total
disregard of the secular Turkish government towards the welfare of the Muslims
of Syria is criminal. Turkey’s
refugee camps are not fit for purpose and nor is the leadership that hosts
them. Not only has it failed to lift a finger to protect the blood of its
brothers and sisters from the butcher Assad – despite presiding over one of the
largest armies in the world - but it has shown a heartless indifference to the
deplorable and dangerous living conditions of Syria’s women and children seeking
refuge within its own borders. This is in stark contrast to the Muslims of
Turkey and the surrounding countries who have opened up their homes to their
brothers and sisters of Syria, offering them food and a safe place to stay
without hesitation, reflecting the gulf of difference between the noble Islamic
values of the Muslim Ummah and the corrupt secular, capitalist, nationalistic
beliefs of its rulers and systems that abandon Muslims in their most desperate
time of need.”
“Erdogan’s minimalistic ‘hands-off’ approach
to managing the needs of the most vulnerable women and children of Syria is
founded upon the corrupt Attaturk secular principle of securing national
economic interests above providing adequate welfare and safety to the most desperate
of people, viewing them as a drain on the economy. This corrosive nationalistic
concept has dehumanized Muslims from other countries, bred racism towards the
Syrian refugees, and is responsible for the bigotry and discrimination that
Turkish and Muslim immigrants suffer daily in Germany and in many other
nationalistic Western states. This nation state ideal that Erdogan’s government and all other Muslim
leaderships have embraced, in place of the noble Islamic system based upon
brotherhood and unity between the believers and their lands, has caused them to sit as idle spectators, shamefully ignoring the
killing fields next door, and watching the human catastrophe in the blessed
land of Al-Sham deteriorate daily, without mobilizing a single soldier.”
“In contrast, in the 19th
century, the Uthmani Khilafah in Turkey, implementing the Islamic system sent
three massive ships full of food to the people of Ireland who were suffering
from a severe famine, with no conditions attached, reflecting the generosity
and wealth of the Khilafah state – a state that is blind to race and ethnicity
and that truly cares for humanity. The women and children of Syria and the
whole Muslim world are in dire need of such a system, governed by a ruler who
is a guardian, protector, and servant to his people, and who will use the
wealth of the state to ensure that every citizen under its rule is looked after
in a humane manner as Islam has obliged. In addition, it is a state that
rejects nationalism and will unite our lands and our armies, liberating the
daughters of this Ummah from their oppressors and establishing for them lives
of dignity, security and prosperity in the manner that only the Laws of Allah (swt)
can achieve.”