MESOP CALL : SAVE HASANKEYF ! – Save the date: Counterforum to UNESCO-WHC session, July 16-17, 2016, Istanbul.

We would like to inform you in advance that a “counterforum” on ecological and cultural heritage will be held on July 16-17, 2016, in Istanbul. It will be organized by the “Ecology Council” on the occasion of the 40th Session of the World Heritage Committee (WHC) of the UNESCO which will be held in Istanbul between July 10 and 20, 2016. The “Ecology Council” consists of more than over 40 organizations – we are among them – and works on issues related to ecological destruction and exploitation from all over the Republic of Turkey.

The counterforum will be very critical with WHC session because of several reasons. Two of them are:

1) The WHC comes together in a country where the destruction of cultural and natural heritage is one of the most worst in the world.

2) In the light of the upcoming WHC session in Istanbul maybe the most ironic aspects is that just half year after the inscription of the Diyarbakir Fortress and Hevsel Gardens – the Sur area of Diyarbakir – on the World Heritage List by the WHC, the Turkish government has started to destroy with military systematically the walled city of Diyarbakir and has displaced ten thousands of people. And the WHC has done no public statement on that!

The Ecology Council will send an international call in the next days with a more detailed description of the targets of this planned counterforum.

Ercan Ayboga for the Mesopotamian Ecology Movement based in Diyarbakir / Bakur (North Kurdistan)