Van Bostaniçi Mayor Gülcihan Simşek in Helsinki

Bostaniçi Mayor Gülcihan Simşek came yesterday the 2nd April for a short visit to Helsinki. She came from Sweden where she had raised funds for projects of her town.

She came to Finland for three days to meet the Kurdish community in Helsinki. She had also a short meeting with Pekka Sauri, Helsinki Mayor for Public Works and Environmental Affairs. Mr Sauri is on left in this picture.

Here is Gülcihan in front of the Helsinki main cathedral.

Bostaniçi is a suburb of Van. You can call it a gecekondu. One of the poorest towns in Turkey, maybe the number one in this list. Most of people who live in Bostanici moved there last decade from villages which Turkish army burnt. They are from seventeen clans. Bostanici is a big refugee camp.

Gülcihan didn’t have any good news from Turkey. Almost 500 DTP members have been arrested during recent weeks, including the chairman of DTP in Diyarbakir, Van and Batman. Cizre Mayor Aydin Budak was arrested yesterday.

Gülcihan had one important message: lots of observes should come to Turkey during the elections. I think that election observation should be going on already now because also the campaigning should be free. When hundreds of politicians are behind the bars how the elections could be free?