KOCAELİ (AA) – KADİR YILDIZ – Those whose names were changed, prevented from using their native language and faced religious oppression during the assimilation policies against Turks in Bulgaria between 1984 and 1989 cannot forget the difficult days. 37 years have passed since 350 thousand Turks from Bulgaria were forced to migrate to Turkey as a result of various pressures. 60-year-old Sevinç Deniz, the daughter of Mustafa Mehmed İbrahimov, who died after being detained by the Bulgarian police because he did not change his name during the assimilation policy, told the AA correspondent about her experiences at that time.
Deniz stated that they had a good life in Bulgaria before the assimilation policy and said that everything changed after 1983. Stating that his father was detained by the Bulgarian police during a raid when they were forced to change his name, Deniz said, “I was also married in another village. He was taken from the house by raid one morning because he did not change his name. They tortured my father for 4 days and 4 nights.
My father came home with a coffin. They tried to change Mustafa to Milan, Mihail. When we received his coffin, they wrote his name as Mihail. He did not take that name while he was alive, but when he was killed, his name became Mihail.” When I opened his shroud, there were cut marks on his chest and throat. He was purple all over. There were fingerprints on my father’s ear. Could such a thing happen? Why did they discriminate against us?” he said.
Deniz stated that his father was killed when he was turning 41 and said, “My father was at the age when he was going to live his full life. Did this have to be done? We are human beings, so when we were children, was there any distinction between Muslims and Christians? We all ate at the same table. Christian families were coming and going to us. My teachers were also Christians. We grew up like brothers, but I paid a heavy price for brotherhood.
Even now I go to Bulgaria with fear. From where?” he said. Stating that he had difficulty explaining what he experienced, Deniz noted that what happened left his family in disarray. Deniz stated that they came to Turkey as a “forced migration” in June 1989 and expressed that they were happy to come to Turkey thanks to the Prime Minister of the time, Turgut Özal. – “We are happy with our country, our homeland” Nurettin Öztürk, 64, who lives in the city, explained that he was called to the police because he objected to changing his name during the assimilation period, and that he told the police that he did not accept another name because he was Turkish.
“The police gave me 3 days because I objected to the Bulgarian name, and they asked me to leave here if I did not change my name,” said Öztürk, adding that he paid his electricity and water debt within 3 days and moved to the city of Kızanlık. Expressing that he always longed for Turkey, Öztürk continued: “It was the period of the late Turgut Özal. Even though we received state support, we worked, earned ourselves, and tried to bring things to a certain level in order not to be too much of a burden on the state.
We are grateful for today. We have a home, our children are educated. Thank God. We are happy with our country, our homeland, but it is also our homeland. We cannot give up there either. We go there once or twice a year.” “We are visiting our elderly people and relatives.” Öztürk stated that they should not be called “Bulgarian immigrants” because the word Bulgarian represents a race, and added that the word “Bulgarian immigrant” hurts them.
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