Turkish Amnesty International in Finnish hands

Ville Forsman wants to see membership increase sevenfold

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By Ayla Albayrak in Istanbul
     
      Most Finns living in Turkey are familiar with "Ville from Istanbul", at least by name.
      Consequently it was no great surprise to those who know Ville Forsman when they heard that this Finnish man had been chosen as the first executive manager of the Amnesty International office in Turkey.
      Before his appointment, Forsman, 33, had been working as a volunteer with Turkish Amnesty for five years. Among other things he has been the webmaster of the organisation's Turkish web-pages.
      "I'd been doing this work de facto, and the workload was growing. When I applied for the position I had already thought that I would have to give up my voluntary work or my doctoral thesis", said Forsman in the new Amnesty offices in Istanbul.
      It was the thesis at Åbo Akademi that had to give way when Forsman was chosen for the task from among around twenty applicants. Forsman has a master's degree in law, and his main area of research interest has been international law.
     
The Amnesty office is located close to Istanbul's famous landmark, the 14th century Galata Tower. The office in a charmingly dilapidated stone building has a laid-back but efficient feel to it: three Turkish subordinates are as young as Forsman himself.
      Ville Forsman moved to Turkey along with his Turkish wife Zeynep. The couple met in France, where both of them were studying.
      The pieces in Forsman's life slotted into place after eight years of living in Turkey. After translation and interpreting work, further studies, and voluntary work with Amnesty, he secured a permanent position with the organisation, and the couple's first child Matias Kerem was born 19 months ago.
      Forsman also thoroughly enjoys living in Istanbul.
      "This is a beautiful city with its own charisma", he says.
     
Having grown accustomed to the hectic rhythm of Istanbul, he could not imagine moving back to Finland these days. Then again, as a father he has admittedly started to look at his surroundings from a new perspective.
      "It is very awkward getting around here with a pram or a stroller. And then we are not really sure what we are going to do when the time comes to put Matias in school."
     
Amnesty has only some 400 members in Turkey, so Forsman is facing a stiff challenge. The objective is to get at least 3,000 members signed up in order to put the Turkish unit on a sound financial footing.
      Turkey is politically splintered into many different groups, numbering among them Kurdish nationalists and Islamists alike. It is difficult to get these conflicting factions together under one roof. Local human rights groups are very seldom ideologically non-partisan.
      "It isn't easy to recruit into the same organisation [Muslim] conservatives and the representatives of sexual minorities", Forsman points out.
      "Many also are actively afraid to do human rights work."
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 25.5.2006


Links:
  Amnesty International
  Amnesty International (Wikipedia)

Helsingin Sanomat