Court Halts Demolition For Planned Mosque Near Validebağ Grove

The İstanbul 7th Administrative Court has ordered that the demolition of a parking lot in preparation for the construction of a mosque at the entrance of Validebağ Grove in the Üsküdar district of İstanbul cease.

The court explained that the Üsküdar municipal government had proceeded with the demolition of a parking lot that is to be the site of a mosque without having a license for the mosque, and though they have halted construction, the court has not yet reached a final decision on the project.

Üsküdar Mayor Hilmi Türkmen spoke on the matter that has created controversy, as protesters have been demonstrating since Tuesday.

Türkmen addressed the subject at a launch held for the Turkish Employment Organization (İŞKUR) and the Üsküdar Employment Center (USIM) on Wednesday. Türkmen said: “I have also seen the news on television saying, ‘The Üsküdar municipality is trying to destroy the greenery of Validebağ Grove. They are constructing a mosque there.' There is no such thing. These are the facts: First of all, the mosque has nothing to do with Validebağ Grove. The mosque will be outside of the grove, in the Altunizade neighborhood, at Yavrupaşa Street, number 3. The deed to the land belongs to the municipality. … We are building a licensed mosque.”

He continued to address the issue of licensing for the mosque, saying, “80 percent of the mosques in Turkey are built without title; many are unlicensed. Our citizens have built them with their own funds. But we have a license for the construction of this mosque. Furthermore, this mosque is not being built from the municipality's budget; we are not spending a penny. The residents of the neighborhood [Altunizade] have been working for seven or eight years to have a mosque. The plans were made during the last mayor's tenure and we will be the ones to build it.

The mayor also criticized the protests, saying, “These people say they are against the cutting down of trees, but there are not even shrubs at the site. The truth is that 80 percent of the neighborhood's residents want this mosque and 20 percent do not. And we are not the ones constructing this mosque; it is the people of this neighborhood who are building it.”

However a video posted by Hürriyet TV online yesterday, a woman claiming to be a resident of the area spoke to the camera saying, “We were informed at five in the morning that they were removing our cars from the parking lot. … They pulled me by my hair and pushed us [protesting] women aside. They went in with bulldozers to demolish the area. … My parents are hadjis [an honorific title given to a person who has successfully completed the hajj to Mecca]; we are a family that prays five times a day. The issue at hand is not the construction of a mosque.”

Construction workers with excavators began to demolish a parking lot at the entrance to the Validebağ Grove (Validebağ Korusu) in İstanbul's Üsküdar district, with police surrounding them for protection, early on Tuesday morning.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)