Parliament human rights commission to monitor racism in Europe

Parliament's Human Rights Investigation Committee will closely monitor extreme right and Islamophobic movements in Europe, including hatred and hostility toward European residents of Turkish origin, the committee announced yesterday. Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Sakarya Deputy Ayhan Sefer Ustun, the committee's chair, said it has launched a program to monitor the course of the investigation into last week's terrorist attacks in Norway. The committee is also in contact with Dutch authorities about an investigation of police officers thought to be responsible for the death of Turkish immigrant Ihsan Gurz in a prison earlier this month, he said. Speaking to reporters, Ustun said European politicians should start examining themselves and their immigration policies in the aftermath of the Oslo attacks, and also in light of a sharp rise in the number of reports of Turks and other nationals of Muslim background being killed in prison due to alleged police brutally.