Turkish Syriacs lament problems with education, Mor Gabriel

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News 4/4/2011 Syriacs in Turkey are fighting to regain their rite to educate their children in their own language, which is recognized by UNESCO as being in danger of extinction. At the same time, many Syriacs are hoping to stop a land grab against the community’s most symbolic center in the country, the 1,700-year-old Mor Gabriel Monastery in Mardin Turkey’s dwindling number of Syriacs are caught in bureaucratic limbo and are unable to adequately teach their children either their language or their religion, according to members of the community. “We need a school,” Şabo Boyacı, a leading figure of the Assyrian community and editor of www.suryaniler.com, recently told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review