Turkish rector sends 1,000 letters on Rohingya abuse

BATMAN, Turkey

A Turkish rector’s letter about persecuted Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar received more than a hundred replies from around the world, he said Wednesday.

Batman University’s Rector Prof. Aydin Durmus sent letters to 1,000 rectors in several countries on Sept. 9.

The letters were written in six different languages: English, German, French, Russian, and Turkish.

Durmus told Anadolu Agency that some of the letters he sent were rectors of the Cambridge and Oxford universities in the U.K., the Johns Hopkins and Michigan universities in the U.S., the Kyoto University in Japan, the Tallinn University Of Technology in Estonia, the Central European University in Hungary, the University Of Bremen in Germany and the National Research University Higher School Of Economics in Russia.

Some of the replies were received by post, while others were emailed, he said.

He added he was impressed by a letter from Prof. Joachim Hornegger, rector of Germany’s Friedrich-Alexander Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg, who urged universities to speak up against the human rights abuse of the Rohingya.

“It is clear that there has been no serious attempt so far to embrace the people who have been subjected to abuses and to stop violations of human rights. In this regard, sensitivity must be shown and we as universities must fulfill our duty. Of course, these efforts are not enough. We should not sit back on our seats,” the letter said, according to Durmus.

Since Aug. 25, over 611,000 Rohingya have crossed from Myanmar's western state of Rakhine into Bangladesh, according to the UN.

The refugees are fleeing a military operation in which security forces and Buddhist mobs have killed men, women and children, looted homes and torched Rohingya villages.

Turkey has been at the forefront of providing aid to Rohingya refugees and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has raised the issue at the UN.

Reporting by Selman by Sena Guler