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 "Caliphate" 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 "Caliphate" 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."

Dr. Nazreen Nawaz
Member of the Central Media Office
of Hizb ut Tahrir