Mosque construction halted in Assyrian village – Turkish Islamist MP demands answers
A Turkish MP from a party with Islamic ideology has posed a question to the vice president asking why the construction of a mosque in the Assyrian village of Zaz has been stopped.
Doğan Bekin, a Turkish MP from the New Welfare Party (Yeniden Refah Partisi, YRP), has submitted a written question to the Turkish vice president regarding the halted construction of a mosque in the Assyrian village of Zaz (Turkish imposed name: İzbırak), located in Turkey’s Turabdin Region.
The mosque’s construction began late last year, initiated by two Kurdish individuals on land unlawfully seized from an Assyrian family that had emigrated from the area. Authorities halted the illegal project after protests from Assyrians. It is believed that the Muslim Kurds, aware that a mosque used for prayer cannot be demolished under Islamic law, were rushing to complete construction in order to create a fait accompli before objections could be raised.
"There are only 2 Kurds in the village, so there is no need for a mosque, but the objective was to use religion in order to make permanent the Muslim Kurdish presence in the village. We believe that all of this has been done in the hope of deterring the trend of our people returning to their villages," an Assyrian from Zaz now living in Belgium and involved in stopping the illegal construction told the Post.
In his written submission to the vice president, Deputy Bekin emphasized: "There are three churches in Zaz, two of which are closed. However, there is no mosque for Muslims in the district. Recently, the construction of a mosque has started for our Muslim citizens living in the region. However, a delegation living in the neighborhood, especially our Assyrian citizens, most of whom come from abroad to the region at certain periods of the year, became involved and demanded that the construction of the mosque be stopped by meeting with the Provincial Governor, District Governor and Mufti, and as a result of the meetings, it was announced that the construction of the mosque was temporarily stopped."
Beyond questioning why construction was stopped, he also asked whether "there are any obstacles to the faith and freedom of worship of the Assyrians in the region?"
Doğan Bekin is Vice-Chairman of the Yeniden Refah Partisi, which currently holds 5 seats in the Turkish Grand National Assembly. The party explicitly endorses Islamic policies and rhetoric.
By submitting the written questions and thereby drawing new media attention to the issue – with Turkish outlets reporting on Bekin’s inquiry – Assyrians fear that the Turkish MP is deliberately seeking to inflame anti-Assyrian and anti-Christian sentiment.
"In the weeks and months leading up to the halting of the mosque’s construction, Islamists were posting hateful messages against Assyrians on Facebook. We believe that Mr. Bekin’s action will reignite this hate," said the source from Belgium.
Kurdish tactics to conquer more Assyrian lands
Kurds, being non-indigenous to the area, have relied on various tactics to seize land, including the use of religion as in the case of Zaz. In the nearby Assyrian village of Dayro d-Qubo, also spelled Deyr Kube (Turkish Karagöl), a Kurdish man began hurriedly constructing a mosque in 2018 before being stopped. In doing so, he even knocked down part of the ancient monastery wall in the village. Another tactic has been to establish memorial sites and graveyards in Assyrian areas. In 2015, Kurds affiliated with the PKK movement quickly established a memorial park, naming it "Abdullah Ocalan Park," in the Turo d’Izlo area of Turabdin, the last remaining cluster of purely Assyrian villages. Their justification was that a PKK member had been killed in the area years earlier. The park was later destroyed by the Turkish army. Violence and threats of violence are also a common tactic used. In Enhil (Turkish Yemişli), the Assyrian elder Gevriye Ego was ambushed and killed in front of his home by two Kurdish suspects in 2023. Ego was a key witness in a land dispute in which Kurds claimed land belonging to an Assyrian.
Zaz is one of many Assyrian villages in the Turabdin Region where mass killings occurred during the Assyrian genocide of 1915. The village was later emptied as Assyrians fled en masse amid the terror unleashed by the PKK’s conflict with the state beginning in the 1980s. In recent years, however, Assyrians have begun returning to Zaz. More than thirty houses have already been rebuilt in the village, with many more planned.
