Turkish authorities crackdown on Armenian academic-entrepreneur

Already facing a prison sentence due to 16 different cases filed against him, author Sevan Nisanyan is now facing a demolition order on a hotel he owns in the village of Sirince in Izmir.

Nisanyan, who is also a linguist and academic, told the Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review that he would resist the demolition order for his Nisanyan Houses Hotel by every possible avenue.

"Those buildings are my children, each of them have my endless labor, creativity, sincerity and most importantly, sacrifice in them," said Nisanyan. "What would you do if someone came with a bulldozer and killed your 16 children because of ideological prejudice and your identity? I will not limit myself to only protesting, let no one doubt this."

The hotel owner said he would continue to operate the houses he has built with his own hands despite all the pressure.

"Neither the threats I receive nor can the ideological pressure intimidate me. I will never, never give up on these houses. I do not intend to move anywhere else, either. They'll need to kill me in order to make me give up on these houses."

Nisanyan entered the tourism business in the early 2000s by restoring historic the Greek houses of Sirince, but a demolition order was issued for them as soon as the buildings were opened for service as a boutique hotel.

"That order was not carried out in those years," said Nisanyan, who said he built 12 more houses in 2005 and 2006 in addition to the original historic buildings.

The new houses were built from mud bricks and stone in harmony with the 2,000-year-old tradition of the Aegean, Nisanyan said, adding that they were original enough to stand as examples of this method.

Sixteen different legal cases were filed against him in the months that followed the construction of the houses he said.

"The process regarding the demolition order was accelerated after my columns on the Turkish Armed Forces and [modern Turkish founder Mustafa Kemal] Ataturk in a newspaper," he said.

"Sirince was a slowly dying agricultural village 20 years ago. I have transformed it to a center of attraction by my own means," he said.

Nisanyan has worked on the project of a "Mathematics Village" in Sirince in recent years in cooperation with Ali Nesin, the son of internationally known Turkish writer Aziz Nesin.

A legal case was also filed against Nisanyan and Nesin regarding the project, but the demolition order could not be executed due to pressure from public opinion and the village is now offering advanced mathematics education to 120 students.

"During this process I have experienced only hostility, doubt and hindrance from the authorities," he said.
Nisanyan said his houses had been padlocked numerous times and that he had received countless threats.

"More than 100 cases were filed against me and demolition orders were issued for all the buildings I have built, including the henhouses," Nisanyan said, counting the cases against him as seven for unsanctioned construction, two for zoning pollution and eight for padlock-breaking cases.

"The sentences [demanded] for all of them are at the upper limit and the total sentence could be 10 years [in prison]. An arrest order may be issued against me at any time, but I am not afraid," he said.