Footballers of Amedspor, the football team of the Kurdish-majority province of Diyarbakır, have been subjected to several racist attacks before, in, and after a Turkish second league match against Bursaspor in the latter’s stadium.
On early March 5, a group of Bursaspor fans exploded fireworks, chanted abusive slogans in front of the hotel where Amedspor players stayed.
On Sunday, what must have been one of the most absurd and violent 90 minutes ever on a green field in a football stadium happened. The booing and whistling was deafening when an Amedspor player as much as looked at the ball, and there was a constant rain of objects pouring down on the Kurdish players: countless water bottles, fireworks, reportedly even a pack of three bullets taped together. On the stands three white flags appeared, showing a white Toros car and the portraits of Cem Ersever and Mahmut Yıldırım. White Toros cars were used by Jitem, the illegal murder squads of the Turkish army in the 1990s – they abducted Kurds in them, who were then killed. Ersever was one of Jitem’s founders, Yıldırım one of its most notorious killers.
The referee did nothing. The game wasn’t halted temporarily, let alone cancelled altogether, which of course should have happened.
The next day, the Amedspor players were welcomed back home as heroes, and as representing not just a club, but a nation. But soon, the story was overtaken by the frantic developments around the presidential candidate of the opposition alliance. One of the six parties in the alliance, the Good (IYI) Party, had left the alliance before the weekend because its leader, Meral Akşener, refused to accept the nomination of CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu. Eventually, she was convinced to accept him – I’ll spare you the details – and on Monday, Kılıçdaroğlu was officially named as candidate. Continue
Fréderike Geerdink for Medyanews
Amedspor announced today on their return from Bursa to Diyarbakır that they will request both the Türkiye Football Federation (TFF) and the UEFA to carry out disciplinary proceedings against the Bursaspor soccer team and the spectators involved in the racist verbal and physical attacks in Sunday’s game.
Today (February 6) Amedspor team was first welcomed in the Diyarbakır airport by fan groups of the team, Diyarbakır MPs of People’s Democratic Party (HDP) Remziye Tosun, Nusret Maçin, Gülistan Atasoy Tekdemir, and Zeyyat Ceylan and many others.
The club then organized a press conference, together with spectator groups, and the Diyarbakır Protection and Solidarity Platform that was founded following the February 6 earthquakes by 80 non-governmental organizations in the city.
Bursaspor had not fulfilled the obligations as the home team for the order and safety of the sports field and its environment and violated article 14 of the related discipline regulation, Amedspor stated. Continue
Bianet
Haber Merkezi – Tanınmış İtalyan karikatürist Gianluca Costantini, Bursaspor maçı esnasında oyuncularına yönelik saldırı düzenlenen Amedspor’u çizdi. Ünlü İtalyan aktivist ve karikatürist Gianluca Costantini, Bursa’da çıktığı maçta saldırıya uğrayan Amedspor’u çizdi. Constantini karikatürü, sosyal medya hesaplarından paylaştı. Paylaşımında “Amedspor, biz seni seviyoruz” notunu ekleyen karikatürist Türkiye Futbol Federasyonu’nu da etiketledi. Continue
Kurdish football team Amedspor will make a complaint to the Türkiye Football Federation and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) over a series of racist attacks by Turkish football supporters this week. Amedspor comes from the city of Diyarbakır (known as Amed in Kurdish), in Southeast Turkey.
On 4 March, fans of rival team Bursaspor – from the city of Bursa in Southwest Turkey – gathered outside the Kurdish team’s hotel and shouted racially motivated insults. Throughout the match between the two teams on 5 March, Busaspor fans hurled missiles, firecrackers – and even a knife – at the Amedspor players, and displayed racist banners. Continue
