Turkey: After a goalless football match against Elazığspor, the team bus of Batman Petrolspor, a club from the Kurdish-majority province of Batman (Elîh), was attacked. The assailants threw stones, sharp objects, and bits of plumbing at the bus, as the police stood by and watched, and the players had to travel back to Batman in a bus with broken windows.
This incident is part of a larger pattern of racially motivated attacks in Turkish sports. Teams from Kurdish-majority areas, such as Batman and Diyarbakir (Amed), are often targeted. Amedspor, a football club from Diyarbakir, has previously lodged complaints with UEFA and FIFA in relation to similar attacks.
The city of Elazığ, and the city of Bursa too, have a history of racially charged incidents after matches against teams from Kurdish-majority areas, and both are known to have a high proportion of nationalists in their communities, raising questions about the lack of precautionary measures taken by the authorities.
The issue extends beyond the fans. Festus Okey, a Nigerian national who moved to Istanbul and had dreams of becoming a footballer, was killed by the Turkish police in 2007. After a 14-year legal battle, the police officer involved was sentenced to 16 years and 8 months in prison.
