28th March, 2018
Mr. David Gallop
CEO, Football Federation Australia
(Via Email)
SUBJECT: Turkey Camp the Wrong Choice for Socceroos
Dear Mr. Gallop,
We write to you, first and foremost, as concerned Australians, bemused and offended by your organisation’s decision to choose an increasingly oppressive and autocratic Turkey as the training base for the Socceroos ahead of the upcoming 2018 World Cup.
We also write to you as representatives of Australians of Armenian heritage, who in large can track their lineage back to the Armenian Genocide, committed by the Ottoman Empire and denied by the current regime.
As a result of these and other crimes unpunished, Turkey’s President-Dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is acting with impunity to suppress democracy in his country, while destabilising his greater region and the rest of the world.
His continued denial of the genocide of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians in 1915, which is by definition the continuation of genocide, is one of a growing list of condemnable acts of autocracy being committed by Erdogan and his regime.
Since the supposed attempted coup against his government in 2016, Erdogan has kept his nation and its citizens on a tight leash, maintaining a record-breaking period of state of emergency, to implement some of the following measures (statistics as of September 2017, now worse):
Dismissing 147,000 public servants from their jobs;
Detaining 127,000 citizens, while outright jailing over 60,000 citizens;
Dismissing 24,000 police officers;
Sacking 44,000 teachers;
Sacking 6,600 health workers;
Sacking 8,600 academics; and
Jailing over 140 journalists.
Further, Human Rights Watch reports that “hundreds of media outlets, associations, foundations, private hospitals, and educational establishments that the government shut down by decree remained closed in 2017, their assets confiscated without compensation”.
Freedom House says “Turkey’s status declined from Partly Free to Not Free, its political rights rating declined from 4 to 5, and its civil liberties rating declined from 5 to 6 due to a deeply flawed constitutional referendum that centralized power in the presidency, the mass replacement of elected mayors with government appointees, arbitrary prosecutions of rights activists and other perceived enemies of the state, and continued purges of state employees, all of which have left citizens hesitant to express their views on sensitive topics”.
Mr. Gallop, as you can see and have no doubt seen, read and heard, the actions of Erdogan have been condemned far and wide, more so recently than ever before.
Therefore, you can hardly blame our bemusement when, while Freedom House is changing a country’s ranking from “Free” to “Not Free” and calling its constitutional actions “flawed”, our Football Federation Australia (FFA) is allowing itself to deliver another stamp of impunity to a reprehensible Turkish regime, by leading our football heroes, our Socceroos to Antalya for a pre-World Cup training camp.
Surely, there cannot be any moral ground to justify this decision. Tactical grounds, such as climate and facilities can surely be accommodated elsewhere, especially when considering the alternative is legitimising a thuggish regime.
Mr. Gallop, we encourage you to reconsider your decision. Considering the role football has always played in uniting cultures in Australia, the Socceroos are being used to do the opposite by supporting a regime at odds with Armenian-Australians, Greek-Australians, Assyrian-Australians, Kurdish-Australians, Cypriot-Australians and many others.
If you were minded to pontificate with the adage that “politics and sport do not mix”, consider the following about Turkey. Turkish NBA star, Enes Kanter of the New York Knicks has an arrest warrant out against him by his home country for comments he made criticising Erdogan.
We thank you in advance for your consideration and look forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely,
[signed]
