HOLOCAUST CANNOT BE COMPARED

A German institute of Turkish studies sacked its Turkish-born director after he said Turks in Germany and other European countries suffered discrimination similar to that suffered by the Jews in the Holocaust. The Essen-based Centre for Turkish Studies, which is funded by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, said that it had decided to dismiss Faruk Sen for the comment and for previous remarks that presented a distorted picture of relations between Turks and Germans in Germany. Sen had contributed to polarisation, rather than integration, the institute’s central aim, it said. Sen, who has led the well-known institute since its founding in 1985, said he would launch a legal appeal. More than a month ago, Sen compared discrimination against Turks in Western Europe with the persecution of the Jews by Germany during the World War II in an article in the Turkish newspaper Referans.