Over the last few years, Kizilay Square in the heart of Ankara has experienced a unique kind of gentrification, Sources said Local authorities target successful Somali businesses to erase their visibility in heart of Ankara..
The Turkish capital’s growing Somali community has established restaurants, cafes, clothing stores and consultancy businesses for bilateral trade here, slowly turning the decaying area into a vibrant neighbourhood.
However, the prosperity of a Somali-dominant neighbourhood has become a target of abuse in Turkey, where anti-immigrant sentiments are on the rise, In April, Sozcu daily, a rightwing Kemalist newspaper known for its anti-immigrant coverage, featured this area in a report and put it on the radar of the nation.
Under the headline “Ankara’s hub became Somalia”, the report said businesspeople and asylum seekers from the East African country had completely transformed two streets in Kizilay “into their own country”.
Since then, police in plain clothes started to pay frequent visits to Somali-owned businesses here, making sporadic identification checks and harassing customers, locals told Diinah.com news
In September, in an incident that shocked the neighbourhood, police detained and handed deportation orders to several Somali business owners in the area, forcing them to sell their enterprises or close them down altogether, MEE has learned.
‘Harrassment campaign’
There is currently a rampant anti-refugee attitude within Turkey, which hosts nearly five million refugees, mainly from Syria.
In recent months, the Turkish opposition started to fuel a campaign against the government for failing to produce any meaningful refugee strategies other than an “open border policy”, The main difference between the Somali community and many other immigrants in Turkey is that Somalis are mostly well-educated and have come to Turkey through legal means.
