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US: Kurdish Community In Nashville
Struggles With Gang Activity
1.8.2007
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August 1, 2007
NASHVILLE, Tennessee, -- A proud enclave of
Kurds has lived in this city for decades, starting
businesses and soccer leagues, holding down good
jobs and blending into the immigrant neighborhoods
south of town.
But now the Kurdish immigrant community has been
shaken to see its young people joining a street gang
that blends old-world customs and new-world thuggery.
Police blame the gang for a string of rapes,
assaults and home invasions.
The gang calls itself Kurdish Pride and is made up
of 20 to 30 teenagers and young adults.
"We don't have the phenomenon anywhere else. This is
a unique situation in Nashville," said Pary
Karadaghi, president and chief executive of Kurdish
Human Rights Watch, based in Fairfax, Va.
The gang members borrow from California gangster
culture by adopting rap slang, scrawling "KP"
graffiti on street signs, wearing gang colors and
flashing hand signs in photos posted online.
They also put Kurdish flags on their cars, and use
yellow - from the Kurdish Democratic Party banner -
as their gang color. On their Web sites, they talk
about Kurdish music and culture.
Unlike other gang members, most Kurdish Pride
followers grew up in stable, working-class,
two-parent homes, and many of their parents own
successful businesses or work at universities,
Nashville Detective Mark Anderson said.
The Kurds, most of whom are Sunni Muslim, come
mainly from Turkey, Iraq and Iran but have their own
language and culture.
Kurdish immigrants have sought refuge in Nashville
since the 1970s, creating the largest community of
Kurds in an American city, with about 10,000
members, Karadaghi said. More Kurds fleeing
persecution came to Nashville in the late '90s, and
many attend the city's public schools.
Gang members say they formed Kurdish Pride in
response to threats and harassment after the Sept.
11 attacks, Anderson said. But Anderson, who works
their neighborhood, said he has never heard of any
violence against the Kurds.
"They started out wanting to be a group of kids that
would hang out and stick up for each other,"
Karadaghi said. "They feel they have to have a gang
in order to survive."
At the Salahadeen Center, a mosque and community
center, Ibrahim Ahmed says he is so worried about
his son joining the gang that he is pulling him out
of his public school.
"They say it's very hard. If you don't join them,
they are not going to protect you," Ahmed said.
While the gang has been around since at least 2001,
the intensity of its violence has escalated
recently, Anderson said.
Nashville has seen a string of 10 home invasions
targeting Hispanic immigrants since January. In one
such case, a pregnant woman was raped by a group of
attackers. Police charged a 17-year-old Kurd, Zana
Noroly, with the rape, but he hanged himself in his
jail cell before going to trial.
Last month police arrested four Kurdish Pride
members on suspicion of trying to murder a park
police officer who had stumbled upon a drug deal.
One of them, Aso Nejad, 21, was already out on bail
on charges he attacked a student at a high school
graduation.
Members of the Kurdish community are hoping that
summer school at a mosque and the recent start of a
youth soccer group will keep others from joining the
gang.
"We are not going to sit still and do nothing," said
Kirmanj Gundi, a professor of educational
administration at Tennessee State University. "They
need to realize what they do is harming themselves
and to a larger extent to the Kurdish community."
Karadaghi wants a discussion among Nashville police,
school leaders and Kurds to try to figure out a
solution.
"I'd be glad to talk to her," Anderson said.
AP
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