Mary DAmbrosio Archive

Syrians Speak of Harsh Refuge in Istanbul (with Video)

Mary D'Ambrosio | August 21, 2014

By Léa Bouchoucha

While Turkey has officially welcomed Syrian refugees, some say they face discrimination and violence.

Turks Face Off Over Their Future

ieiMedia and University of Jamestown students arrived in Turkey on the eve of the August 2014 presidential elections, to report on a deeply divided society.

In the wake of the 2013 Gezi Park uprising, a protest that began as a small sit-in against the destruction of a pocket park and ended in nationwide demonstrations against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's authoritarian style, Istanbul Project students wanted to find out why some Turks passionately supported Erdoğan, and others saw him as a symbol for all that ailed Turkey.

Undergraduates reported in two fiercely pro-government neighborhoods, Fatih and Eyüp, and two opposition ones, Kadıköy and Okmeydanı, in search of stories that might explain the driving forces behind these political sentiments. They then told those stories in words, photos and video.

Foreign correspondent interns reported on the runup to the elections, and found their host publications -- Worldpress, the UN-based MediaGlobal, Women's eNews and InterPress Service, eager to publish their eyewitness reports.

Soon after we left, Erdoğan was elected president -- by a healthy margin -- and we began to hear secularists talk about leaving the country.