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US: Kurdish restaurant owner Ibrahim
Parlak facing possible deportation
1.10.2007 |
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October
1, 2007
HARBERT, Mich. - In Ibrahim Parlak's native
village of Gaziantep, Turkey, whoever had the
biggest living room had the unofficial
responsibility of opening his doors during
celebrations and times of mourning to give the local
community a place to gather.
Now the owner of a restaurant in Harbert, it is
Parlak who opens his doors nearly every Monday
night, though not for business. Every week, friends
and neighbors spill in by the dozens, dutifully
armed with trays of baked ziti and pasta salad, to
congregate for a potluck dinner.
Once an obscure man from a distant and unfamiliar
culture, Parlak has reached iconic status in this
small town since he became the subject three years
ago of a deportation order accusing him of ties to
terrorism. The struggle to clear his name has turned
what once was a motley crew of former restaurant
customers into an extended family, banded together
with lasting closeness to help their foreign friend.
"This is his village, his adopted village," said
Michele Gazzolo, the mother of Parlak's 10-year-old
daughter, Livia. "Since he arrived, he's treated
everyone as if he had known them his whole life.
People felt that and they recognized that it was
something unique."
Parlak is Kurdish, and like many of his people,
engaged in political struggle for self-determination
of a region called Kurdistan in Turkey.
He arrived in Chicago in 1991, was granted political
asylum in 1992 and by 1994 had a green card. That
same year he moved to Harbert, where he bought a
roadside restaurant and named it Cafe Gulistan --
which in Kurdish means "paradise."
But paradise began to cloud over in 2004 when a
Turkish court resentenced Parlak in a 1987 border
clash for which he already had spent 1 1/2 years in
prison, spurring the U.S. government to reassess his
immigration status. U.S. authorities determined
Parlak had lied about his involvement in the
skirmish and with the Kurdistan Workers' Party,
which was put on Washington's terror watch list in
1997, meaning he could be classified as a terrorist.
Parlak was sent to jail in July 2004.
Christina Root Worthington, a friend of Parlak's,
said she and a few close friends would gather
regularly in the restaurant when he was first
incarcerated to discuss his case, sort through his
immigration records and speak to attorneys.
"I once said to Ibrahim's daughter: 'Don't you think
all this talk about Turkey is making you hungry for
turkey?' " Worthington said. The next night,
Worthington made good on her joke, arriving at the
restaurant with a fully-dressed turkey. "It sprung
from that into this really amazing thing."
Missing a friend
As Parlak's closest friends were meeting to plan
their friend's legal defense, his customers at Cafe
Gulistan were noticing the absence of the cheerful
owner, who would often pull up a chair to engage his
guests in conversation, or regale them with the
stories behind the Kurdish tapestries, photos and
maps that hang from the restaurant walls.
"We had been coming here for 12 years," said Suzanne
Aberly, who lives in the nearby town of Union Pier
during the summer and keeps up with Parlak's case by
e-mail from Dallas during the winter. Aberly said
she and her husband were shocked by the news and
immediately asked how they could help.
"Ibrahim is sincere," she said. "Anyone who knows
Ibrahim believes in him."
Parlak spent 10 months in jail and years thereafter
petitioning the Board of Immigration Appeals to drop
the deportation order. This month, his case leaves
the administrative courts and goes before the 6th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
Last week, 10 of 50 potluck attendees put their
names on a sign-up sheet to travel to Ohio in
Parlak's entourage for his Oct. 22 appeals court
hearing. Those who cannot take the day off work plan
to show their support at a rally, to be held at the
restaurant the afternoon before.
Over time, the potlucks have partly morphed from
mutual support groups to business meetings, as
residents discuss new ways to help Parlak and
advance his case.
"He had a garden, and when he was in prison, nobody
was taking care of the garden," said Martin Dzuris,
one of Parlak's closest friends and himself a
refugee from the former Czechoslovakia. "The first
potlucks, we were also weeding the garden. And then
every one thereafter, it was new ideas."
Friends raised more than $100,000 for legal fees,
T-shirts and posters featuring the slogans "Free
Ibrahim" and "Ibrahim for Citizen," and for
20-minute phone calls, which cost $26 each and which
Parlak would place to the restaurant to coincide
with Monday meetings.
Political support
Along the way, Parlak's cause has attracted the
support of celebrities -- Roger Ebert, a long-time
customer of the restaurant, is one of Parlak's most
dedicated supporters -- and lawmakers. Sen. Carl
Levin (D-Mich.) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) have
both introduced bills on his behalf, which are
currently the only thing keeping Parlak from being
deported.
But for the restaurateur, all of that is just gravy.
"This is my ground. Without this, there wouldn't be
anything else," Parlak said, gesturing toward
friends busily exchanging heaping plates of food for
posters announcing Parlak's upcoming rally. "It's
not a one-day stay. It hasn't been a two-day stay.
It's been here, always."
Parlak refuses to predict an outcome for the
appellate court hearing, beyond saying that he hopes
this test of strength is nearing its end. "But not
this," he says, looking once more around the
restaurant. "It would be nice to continue this even
after this is over -- but I hope with a different
topic of conversation."
chicagotribune com
**
Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in
Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate over 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan
but unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag
is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it
is a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan ( Kurdistan-Turkey)
wikipedia
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