The killing fields of Beykoz!!!

Barely 24 hours after we reported an improvement in the situation at the Beykoz shelter, Muharrem Ergul, the Mayor of Beykoz is once again back to square one.

Yesterday Yasemin Baban, the head of our association went to the shelter to recover some of her personal property illegally appropriated by İhsan Öksüz.

Upon arrival to the shelter the security guard, an individual named Erol who barely a few days ago was happilly accepting “donations”, abruptly stopped her at the door. He was under personal instructions from Öksüz not to allow any of us at the shelter.

For an instance Yasemin considered calling the Jandarma and asking once again for their help in dealing with this situation but she decided against it. The situation was immediately reported to our lawyer and has passed to engross our legal files in our court case against Ergul.

Mr. Ergul is from Trabzon, in the North of Turkey, the Black Sea region. The people from that region as widely known as honest, honorable, hard working, industrious and strong headed. It seems we have someone here that has only inherited the last of the traits.

From this blog the Group of Volunteers of Beykoz make you a promise Mr. Mayor. This issue will never go away until you face reality, make an act of contrition and apologize to us and the world for bringing the situation to this point. It may take days, weeks, months or years, but we will never give up. Furthermore we will never allow the interest in this case to wane, on the contrary, the actions will intensify as time pass.

Mr. Erguls team has the support of Nesrin Citirik, Adanas Barbie, from then downwards he is only supported by İhsan Öksüz, the head of cleaners.  On the other hand he is facing mounting international pressure and a growing team of people working tirelessly to bring justice to this issue. Our plattform is made up by individuals from the public and private sector, diplomats, businessmen, intellectuals, academics, lawyers, doctors, publicist, media experts and an ever growing mass of normal citizens that have decided not to stay silent any longer. Furthermore this plattform has gone international, with supporters all over the European Union spreading the message tirelessly… and this group is growing day after day.

It is always a bad idea for a politician to turn an issue into a personal vendetta. Unless he resorts to the physical elimination of the problem (that is, killing us all here!), he is the party that stands to loose more in the process. Mr. Erguls career stands to be permanently damaged by all of this.

Incredibly Mr. Ergul advertises himself on his own website as a man of culture, an enlightened educator, a sportsman, an gentleman-scholar responsible for the relations of Istanbul Municipalities with the European Union.

(http://www.beykoz.bel.tr/b_kisi_detay.asp?tur=284&id=94)

It is up to Ergul himself to go down in history as the person that solved the stray dog problem in Beykoz through the correct implementation of Neuter and Return or as the man who turned his municipality (and his career) as the butt-of-all-jokes.

Ok.. here he is.. Muharrem Ergul, elected Mayor of Beykoz. Please feel free to leave a comment at the blog.. we know he reads it.