A week on from the devastating twin earthquakes that hit Turkiye’s southeast and northwest Syria, and the scale of the devastation has become far more acute. Türkiye and Syria were hit by 7.8 Richter magnitude earthquake in the early hours of 6 February 2023, with its epicentre near the Turkish city of Gaziantep. This was […]
Shacklewell Lane Mosque, in East London, will hold a “night of prayer and reflection” in memory of all those who have lost their lives in the devastating earthquakes in Turkiye and Syria. It takes place on Friday, 17 February, which this year falls on Miraç Kandil Gecesi (Lailat al Miraj) – a holy night in […]
Hundreds of people came to pay their respects to Özkan Hasan at Palmers Green Mosque, North London, on Sunday, 5 February, ahead of his body being repatriated to North Cyprus where he will be buried. The iconic guitarist, who was a central figure in the entertainment scene of Turkish London in the 1970s and 80s […]
British Turks have been present in the UK for over a hundred years, yet we have only had a handful of people in the Houses of Parliament whose immediate roots hail from Turkiye or North Cyprus. Perhaps the best known – and most senior – Parliamentarian of Turkish Muslim origin is Baroness Meral Hussein-Ece OBE. […]
Dragons’ Den returns to our screens at the start of the New Year with a brand new series of entrepreneurs vying for investment from five business ‘dragons’. The first episode will be broadcast on BBC 1 at 8pm on Thursday, 5 January 2023. There are no changes to the line-up of dragons for series 20, […]
As we reach the end of the 2022, we look back at some of our biggest stories of the year, reflecting the highs and the lows of the British Turkish community. For many mainstream media in Britain, the defining moments of 2022 will include the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the Ukraine War, the climate […]
A mother campaigning to ensure entertainment venues are better prepared for terrorist attacks after her son was killed in the Manchester Arena bombing has received confirmation the law is set to change. Figen Murray was contacted by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on what would have been her late son Martyn Hatt’s 35th birthday on 15 […]
Detectives investigating the kidnap and murder of Koray Alpergin have made a further arrest. A 33-year-old man was detained on suspicion of kidnap and murder on Saturday, 17 December. He remains in custody at a South London police station. Popular Turkish DJ and businessman Koray Alpergin, aged 43, and his 33-year-old girlfriend, Gözde Dalbudak, were […]
In Turkish, we say, “Ateş düştüğü yeri yakar”. This proverb, which translated means ‘an ember will burn where it falls’, is used to explain that only those who have endured a calamity can truly understand the deep and wretched misery that arises from it. I thought of this phrase as I walked around East Ham Town […]
A travel advert promoting North Cyprus as a travel destination was the third most complained about advert in Britain this year. The television advert, placed by the North Cyprus Tourist Board (NCTB), attracted 394 complaints, according to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The National Federation of (Greek) Cypriots had driven the anti-Turkish complaints campaign to […]
