Now we wonder if we should visit Turkey again, a bad image for Turkey indeed

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/05/200954213113152601.html

Marriage. in Turkey, has suddenly become risky bussiness....

Such a tragic event.  May the victims rest in peace. 

Marriage anyplace is always risky....how about the Catholics who are not allowed to divorce...they had some pretty "interesting" ways of getting out of it.....

Then, I don´t think Roswitha has to worry.  I can´t really imagine her in Bilge Koyu, most tourists would never go to Bilge Koyu.  It is a very poor remote village close to the Syrian border. 

So sad, in particular when I remember the joyous wedding parties I have attended. 

There is a lot more to this story, I´m sure.  Usually Turkish weddings are preceeded by a engagement of a significant time, so if there were problems, they must have known about them.  The assailants were masked, nobody knows who they were?

Inna lillahi ve inna ileyhi raciun. May their souls rest in peace. :[

The Dutch  news says it´s not sure whether it´s something to do with the Kurdish problem or just a family thing. But I dont trust the Dutch news anyway, on the same page it first said ´44 people were killed including the bride and bridegroom´ and at the bottom of the page it said ´It is unclear whether the bride and bridegroom were amongst the dead´. It´s also interesting to see how they are able to translate the news film, the only thing the man was doing was summing up the list of friends and family he lost, but apparently the translator read a completely different story in it, not even mentioning that ´his sister and friends were killed´.. (Unfortunately the link on their website isn´t working, I saw it on TV..) Are newsmakers really making things up??

My condoleances to all family and relatives of the people killed in this drama..

This is absolutely dreadful.  I don´t think there are words to describe it.

Our news says that is was a family feud.

 Chantal: the Turkish press is also confirming:

44 dead, including bride and groom. In the list of names, most have the surname of the bride. But the grooms younger brother or sister died, also the imam who was doing the wedding.

The 8 attackers were caught by the gendarmerie, and initial reports seem to be it was some sort of long-running family feud. The groom was a distant cousin of the bride.

Tragic.

orosPUCUCULARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

That´s so horrible !!

It´s a shame

couldnt they marry bec of being distant cousins?

we all should take a minute of silence and sorrow ...

Yes, you all  are right, like a family feud, reminding me of Sicily, Nothing to do with Kurdish problem.

blood feuds like in Sicily

Me too. The weddings I attended in Turkey were such happy affairs. My sympathies to the victims and to their survivors.

it can happen every country , may be not same but similar with this

yes it is a bad image for Turkey but it is not a reason not to visit

if it was happened in your country , would you leave there?

the people who did this cant be human

 +1 I dont think there is any place in the world you can still visit if you consider what has happened there. Maybe you should move to an uninhabited island then?!

sad sad sad

may Allah bless their souls and have mercy on them

More about blood feuds

http://www.gendercide.org/case_honour.html

Blood feuds, gun violence plague Turkey´s southeast

BILGE, Turkey (Reuters) - "I wish fire upon the houses of those who set the fire in my house," said 75-year-old Sultan Celebi. "They ruined us all. I want for them the biggest punishment that is possible."

Celebi´s words, uttered after an armed attack on a village wedding robbed her of four children, three daughters-in-law and one grandchild, amply illustrated the depth and bitterness of bloodfeuds, clan rivalries and vendettas in largely Kurdish southeastern Turkey; an unending cycle of violence and revenge.

Forty-four people were killed Monday in one of the worst attacks involving civilians in Turkey´s modern history. The massacre, perpetrated by masked men with automatic rifles and hand grenades, must put pressure on Ankara to address the root-causes of instability in the region, long a hindrance to Turkey´s European Union membership quest.

The mass killing was, according to local residents, the culmination of a long family feud.

Sixteen women, including the bride, and six children were killed in Monday´s attack in Bilge, a village of a few hundred people in the Turkey´s conservative heartland.

While the scale of Monday´s killing has shocked this Muslim country of 70 million, experts say dozens are killed in rural Turkey every year in "blood for blood" vendettas passed from generations over land disputes, grazing rights or matters of family honor.

Experts say the problem, which is more acute in the Kurdish southeast, is aggravated by unequal land distribution, power struggles in a feudal-style clan system and a decision by the government to set up well-armed village militias against Kurdish rebels.

"The modern...republic (of Turkey) was supposed to create a nation of citizens, but it has betrayed its ideals in the southeast," said Dogu Ergil, an academic and expert on Kurds.

"This is a combination of tribalism, love for guns and tradition gone awfully wrong," Ergil told Reuters.

Local residents said the feud within the extended Celebi family in Bilge dated back to a land conflict in the mid-1990s.

The attack, which witnesses said was carried out by several gunmen, came after the father decided to marry off his daughter to a man in the nearby city of Diyarbakir, passing over a groom from one part of the quarrelling Celebi family.

REFORM PRESSURE

There are some 60,000 state-sponsored village guards throughout Turkey´s southeast, who fight alongside state security forces against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels. Critics say the region is awash with guns.

Gareth Jenkins, an Istanbul-based analyst, said village guards have used their weapons many times to settle blood feuds.

Human rights groups have long called on the government to disband the village guards, whom they say are an unaccountable force; but disbanding them is not that easy. 

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5443G520090505

There is something totally weird in this incident. It does not tally with the local traditions.

1. While the son of any girl´s uncle has the first right to claim her hand in marriage by local traditions, this mass murder by a rejected suitor is not normal, even by Kurdish standards.

2. Local traditions would not normally allow shooting people in prayers.

3. Family feuds are between men only. Women are never killed intentionally or indiscriminately.

The whole thing looks organized, with only a partial knowledge of local traditions.. Somebody wants the local village guards disbanded quick.

 I agree with you here AlphaF....as I said in my initial statement:

"There is a lot more to this story, I´m sure. "

It´s a very tragic event. I know that there´s a feudal structure in the southeast region of Turchia. Therefore it´s a reason for this massacre. I´m sending my condolences to the relatives of the victims.

Maybe most of aged ladies in this site won´t come to Turchia in order to protect their wrinkle butts. Maybe the gigolo market, servant market, estate-agency market (especially in Halicarnassos) are closed for them.

what a pity!

Thank you for your conern over TC´s wrinkled butted ladies but what about the plump butted ones?   

Some good analysis by Andy Finkel, covering all of the key issues:

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/yazarDetay.do?haberno=174544

 Yes, an interesting article about this dispicable act. 

What Andy forgets to mention is that the first indiscriminate shooting during a wedding ceremony, recorded in the area (again on Kurds, but in Iraq) was by the invading American soldiers. Americans, later, apologised and said they had mistaken the wedding party with a terrorist riot.

Regarding the incident in Turkey, the second stage of the tragedy is now unfolding; the innocent part of the assasins´  family and close relatives are now desparately trying to flee from the area, well aware that their own days are numbered if they stick around much longer.

Poor people.

 I agree.  There is an (american) English expression.   "It has a strange smell to it".  I think it is not "what it seems".

Watch this short documentary. If you still can not figure out why local people seem to be at each others´ throats, in places like Iraq and Turkia....You must be dumb..

http://www.vidivodo.com/259494/amerikanin-dehset-planlari

NOTE: Try copy&paste, if your link does not work

This seems so backwards to me.   Sorry, I understand traditions but "claim" and "right" sounds like your purchasing a piece of property.  Those poor girls!

 I have no idea about them all. you know they are all hopeless. By the way, when was the last time you brush your teeth? Your teeth becomes yellow because of drinking so much beer.

I recommend Sensodyne Toothpastes for u. here´s the link of that product. Brush your teeth please.

http://sensodyne.co.uk/products.html

 Thank you comedian! 

Ohhhh.....that is so mean.  Is there any reason to be so cruel?

 Don´t worry Alameda, I have bought some pearl drops and stopped drinking beer...........