One of my friends is going to Istanbul soon and asked for some tips. I can tip her on anything, but I´m having trouble with pointing towards a good restaurant. She´s a vegetarian (so also no fish) and I LOVE meat and fish. All the best restaurants I know either envolve great meat dishes or fish dishes. So does anybody know a place with the best vegetarian dishes? Other tips for Istanbul are also welcome. I love finding out about new hidden places.

Where are you from? Often something specific from your home country makes a nice gift.

Yes, he was murdered. Yes, this was bad. And yes, we need to recognize things to be able to improve them. However, we need to diagnose things CORRECTLY. If somebody is murdered because there was a crazy guy with a gun in his house, we shouldn´t call this racism. We should look at the real reason, to solve this issue. For example, how did this man get the gun? As Dutch society we (me and my countrymen) should look at the trade of illegal guns in Holland. This man was arrested before, why was he set free? We should look at the current legal system in Holland. People said they were afraid of the killer. Why didn´t they go to the police before, or did the police didn´t listen?

A lot of reasons to look at. But if racism isn´t one of them, calling Holland xenofobic will not solve this issue at all. The Turkish government just saw the word "Turkish" and "murder" and didn´t look into the issue any further. They didn´t see any other parts, like the fact that he was half Dutch and raised alone by his Dutch mother all his life. They also didn´t see the questionable back ground of the boy, pointing towards him being a pimp, possibly also for this girl. If the Turkish government wants to fight racism in Europe, they should address real racist violence. Getting mixed up in an unrelated murder, with a questionable victim is not usefull at all. 

I am talking about citizens. The ö pops up everywhere. And people who have letters that the system doesn´t recognize like ğ use those letter unofficially. I remember one of the kids in my class, his name was Doğan, while he was born in Holland. Only after starting to learn Turkish I discovered that we had all been saying his name wrong. We don´t have this silent ğ in Holland, so everybody called him Dogan. We all talk a lot about Europeans not accepting Turks on this website, but what does this whole letter issue say about Holland and Turkey. How Turks behave in Holland, and how foreigners are expected to behave in Turkey?

I am worried about the racist party in my country. People call it far right, but it has nothing to do with right politics. I don´t think the guy heading the party is dangerous. I think it´s dangerous that so many people vote for him. That so many people in my country are complete idiots. I think the only way to solve this would be to have this party rule my country for 4 years. That way people could feel that this party has no real sound economic and social ideas, and my country would just get worse for 4 years. Than people would see that this idiotic views of blaming "foreigners" (not just Muslims) is just stupid.

One line from what was said in the report did strike me though. "Muslims with this background are discriminated [against] in the ... the education system in a number of European countries" What does this mean? Does this refer to girls and women not being able to wear headscarves in schools?

So... ü and ö are alien to "us" Dutch too, but Turkish people here still use it on their foreign documents, and letters like ğ are also used unofficially. I didn´t hear an official complain from the Turkish government that Turks need to work harder to not be perceived as "alien" in Holland, and lose those letters Turkey is becoming more international, and I´m sure people would get used to an X as well.

 I think that is highly dependent on the country where you ask the question. This event shows the world once again that "the Muslim world" does not exist. There is not one sort of Muslim, with one opinion.

First of all, let me say that I regret the death of this young man. I feel sorry for his family, who have to miss him at such a young age.

However, I don´t agree with the remarks made by the Turkish government. This murder is not a reflection of the Dutch society. That this man had a gun in his house is highly suspect. Guns are illegal in Holland, and the fact that this guy had a gun already makes situation very strange. The neighborhood has said in interviews that the man who shot him was a bad man, who threatened other people as well. He´s clearly not an average Dutch man. The people mentoined he was arrested before because he followed somebody with an axe.

Secondly, this is the result of a long internal fight in the family. That this was caused because the man who was shot is half Turkish is speculation by the Turkish government. Personally, I think there were other things going on. The neighborhoud people said they didn´t like Atilla because he was known as being violent, also towards his girlfriend. They also suspected him to earn his money from illegal activities. It´s strange that Atilla was at those people´s house after a night of clubbing, at 6 o clock on a Saturday morning with 3 of his friends. This points towards a LOT more going on. I think we will never know what the real reasons are for shooting him, but I think screaming "Holland is xenofobic" is a simplification of the truth.

Yes, I personally also believe that my country is becoming more xenofobic, but no, this death is not caused by that. Xenofobia has not reached the point of shoting people. This is the result of a lot of strange people getting together, and the situation spinning out of control. The Turkish government calling this killing of a half-Dutch, half-Turkish person a xenofobic murder is not helping the multi-culti society in Holland at ALL. It will just make the Turkish people feel as victims, while the Turkish people in Holland are mostly nothing like Atilla, and will never end up in a situation like this.

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. - Benjamin Franklin

My thought... just change the name to Aleks for official things, and put Alex with an X on everything else. The Dutch alphabet doesn´t include an ö or ü either, but official documents can include these letters, so many Turkish people can still keep their names (including ´weird´ letters) as they are. The letters ı, ş, ğ and ç are not registered in the Dutch computers, so they can´t be included in official documents. However, you see these letters around Holland none the less on unofficial things. I´m not bothered by it, so let the man keep his X as well