The IHH, the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, was an organization mostly known by conservative circles in Turkey before the Gaza flotilla incident. The organization was founded in 1994 and it brought aid first to Bosnia and Kosovo and then to Chechnya. Omer Faruk Korkmaz, a member of the IHH board of directors, said that one needed to know about the activities of the organization conducted in the field to understand it. He added that talking to orphans and victims of earthquakes would reveal the real face of the organization.
Journalist Abdurrahman Dilipak said that the organization was one of the biggest in the world. It is active in 110 different countries and brought aid to 60 different countries. Omer Faruk Solmaz from the IHH board of directors said that the organization did not have any branches in different countries but worked in cooperation with the most credible NGOs of the countries. Solmaz said that they also helped non-Muslim countries such as Darfur and worked with the Red Cross in these regions. Solmaz said that they only received money from donations.
Korkmaz stated that a large part of the people in IHH were religious because Turkey was a Muslim country and this was an association founded by Muslims. He expressed that this did not mean that they had a negative impression of Jews. He said that the participation of religious Muslims in their activities was higher.
When asked about the Hamas slogans shouted during the demonstrations, Korkmaz said that they did not organize these demonstrations and there were other people who did not belong to IHH in such organizations. He stated that there were slogans that disturbed him too. Journalist Ahmet Hakan said that people supported Hamas even if they did not express it openly. He stated that there was a complex reality since people who supported Hamas did not necessarily support terror. He also said that the recent incidents would increase the amount of donations that the organization received. He expressed that Islamic communities had their own aid organizations now and IHH was an aid organization of Islamic groups that are a bit more "radical".
Korkmaz also referred to the recent flotilla incident and said that blood of the martyrs would help in ending the embargo on Gaza.
Source: ntvmsnbc (Turkey), June 9, 2010
