Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Inhumane Attitude by 2007 WYCC Organiser Continues (Day 4)
Today mark the 4th day we are in Antalya and Round 3 is scheduled to start as usual at 3pm. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Koral, Tournament Director of 2007 WYCC, for making the shuttle bus service starts from 2pm as opposed to 2.25pm (originally planned by the Organiser) transporting players & parents from Alinda Beach Hotel when I personally highlighted the problem of transfering all players to tournament venue on time since the shuttle service has been scheduled at a 10 minutes interval to him on Day 2.
Today, the 1st shuttle service starts at 2.10pm and the 1st batch of players and parents arrived at the Gate 5 minutes later. The rain has started when we depart from the hotel and it started getting heavier when we arrived at the Gate. To our agony, the security guard did not allow us to enter the Gate because it’s still 15 minutes away from the official time to allow players into the building.
For haven sake, don’t these people care for children that may fall ill as a result of standing in a windy raining condition (15 degree celcius). As I peep through the gate, I saw the security guard consulted one of the Tournament Arbiter inside the building but the Arbiter says NO!!!!!!!!
Here are some of the stories:
http://malaysianchess.blogspot.com/2007/11/inhumane-attitude-by-2007-wycc.html
http://malaysianchess.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-we-are-treated.html
http://malaysianchess.blogspot.com/
I know the President of the Turkish Chess Federation and I am confident that he will do his best to try to rectify any misunderstanding or problems. Turkish scholastic chess is booming and I expect to see a wave of young talented players coming out of this country in the near future.
That report is totally unfair. Conditions in Turkey are excellent.
There are covered corridors within about 30 meters of the playing hall where parents can and do stand.
Parents are not allowed in because first day they were NOISY and SMOKING in the playing hall.
There are also many suspicions of cheating by parents and others in Youth events these days.
Within 150 meters the parents can sit in comfortable hotel lobbies and wait.
This is better than ANY of the 6 previous World Youths I have attended. The organizers do not make the rain or the freezing cold 15 degrees CELSIUS. Or the 10 second power cut.
They do make a great event in nice hotels. NOTHING like Belfort!
As a Malaysian I am ashamed that a representative of my National Federation hase decided that the best way to address personal unhappiness (whether true or preceived))is to insult his host. I can only hope that the world does think that all Malaysians are like that.
For sure everyone else is saying good things about the event and while I have no opportunity to enjoy the hospitality of the Turkey Chess Federation, there is no question thousands of happy guests in the past (and present) cannot be wrong!
I also wonder what is the experience and qualifications the author of the Blog refers to that to supports his statement that Turkey was not ready for such an event!
I agree with the author of the Malaysian chess blog. I was shocked that our team wasn’t allowed to enter the building when it is raining like cats and dogs outside. It’s common sense and the organizer blew it. They should apologize to the kids and parents and fix the problem.
This would never happen in America. We hold scholastic events in the SAME building as the playing hall. This way, there would be no busing needed. FIDE should learn from this.
I for one ran for shelter with my kids. The others wanted to stay near the gates.
Yeah. We Americans know how to run tournaments the right way 🙂
It’s unfortunate such a wonderful event is being marred by this incident.
I for one agree with the first comment. This is by far the best junior tournament I’ve ever taken my son to.
I can imagine how the tournament director would be taking this right now.
1. There is no doubt that this year’s tournament is much better organized than previous years. Just look at the website for an example, which has new pairings daily by mid afternoon EST. And the first round began 15 minutes late, as opposed to several hours late in Belfort and Batumi.
2. The conditions for teams will vary because of many different hotels and four playing venues. For example, the USA team is housed near the playing halls.
3. It is paramount to maintain the security of the playing venue. Parents and coaches should not be allowed inside. There are enough covered areas nearby, but some parents will always want to wait right in front of the door. And while the rain is unfortunate, it is not unusual weather for November.
4. There are nearly 1500 players and 2000+ parents and coaches from over 100 countries in Antalya. In an event this large, it is inevitable that some will be unhappy.
Michael Aigner
Leaving kids on rain is abusive. There is no excuse for this. Kids could get ill. This has nothing to do with pairings. It’s abuse of humans.
No kids are left in the rain, that’s nonsense. There is plenty of shelter.
Look at Abby Marshall’s blog on USCF website. She is known to be a critic of shortcomings and she says its great!
I really apologize for other teams for the bad impression given by the Malaysians. Just bring a sweater and an umbrella and walk the sheltered areas and quit whining.
Turkey is one of the last places where I would send a child.
(1) Over the past decade, hundreds of reporters and editors have been indicted, convicted, or imprisoned for news coverage deemed undesirable by the Turkish state. At the end of 1998, 27 Turkish journalists were in jail because of their work–more than any other country in the world for the fifth year running. CPJ found that the Turkish government is still using vaguely-worded laws to criminalize reporting on sensitive political topics such as the Kurdish issue and the role of Islam in politics.
(2) Murat Kul who works for the Turkish Chess Federation was convicted by a State Security Court of violating Article 136 of the Turkish Penal Code. He was sentenced to four years and two months in prison.
(3) There is a Kurdish crisis. Turkey is this close to attacking the Kurdish population in northern Iraq…The US government firmly opposes Turkish action across the border, and US citizens experienced hostility in Turkey.
(4) Turkey is a major destination and transit country for women and children trafficked primarily for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. A small number of men from Turkey were trafficked to the Netherlands for the purpose of forced labor in 2006. Women and girls are trafficked from Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, and other countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. This year victims were also trafficked from Kenya, Nigeria, and the Philippines.
(5) The Turkish Chess Federation has a history of legal threats. On 28th July 2006 Mr. Ali Nihat Yazici filed to the FIDE Ethics Commission, a complaint against a well-known journalist Mr. Dimitrije Bjelica. Bjelica called Yazici “slave of mafia from fide” and accused him of corruption. Now Yazici is suing ECU for not awarding him to host tournaments that he wants. But FIDE awarded to Turkey hosting the World Youth 2009 and other tournaments.
I don’t know why this people try to slander Turkey just for an arbiter decision. I am happy with the organization and can see that they are trying to do their best for this tournament.
In every tournament there are always people not satisfied. As long as they are not statistically significant. SD between 0.01 to 0.05 is still ok.
The ones not satisfied, please find a way to cope the problem.
Umbrella, Raining coat, Jacket, Find shelter nearby, taking vitamins. Talk to the organizer in a nice way to prevent this in the future. I think they will try to help solving the problem.
About the incident between ECU and TCF, it is not for ECU not awarding every tournament to TCF but the legal violation of the bidding procedure. It is a legal problem about problems in applying the procedure. By the way both sides simply behave professionally. After TCF sued ECU, Mr.Kutin congratulated TCF for the organization of TCF and then TCF staff treated him as he deserved because of his office. Please read the relevant article on Turkish Chess Federation web site and ChessBase web site.But you probably have some deep prejudice against Turkey.
About the other incident with Mr.Bjelica, it is just a legal cases in Ethics Commission.
About the Kurdish Question, there are 15 million Kurds in Turkey without asking for anything. Kurds, have their own political party in the parliament without being able to formulate clearly what they want from Turkish state. They just have a very vague discourse about democracy, human rights etc. Instead, they talk about “we cannot call our brothers terrorists”. It is not about being your brother, IT IS ABOUT KILLING PEOPLE! Killing innocent people! They are even killing other Kurds! You should also see the other side of the coin and then write about it. Some Kurds have national sentiments but these people aim to mobilize them and Turkish state is trying to avoid this. This is reel-politics. What is the problem in that? Aren’t there similar problems all around the world? Oh, by the way you forhot to mention, the Armenian issue, Cyprus issue which are all reflected in such a way that they are aiming to create xenophobia but such things never happen on a wide scale. Thousands of people demonstrating in cities does not look for and hunt Kurds like a witch hunt. I do not even question why US is not attending to shake the tournament hall.
There are 10-15 million Kurd-based citizens in Turkey and Istanbul, the city that is the face of Turkey in the world has great number of Kurds! So, how on earth you can think that Turks are ready to attack Kurds. OK, they might believe in their own cause as Marxist-Kurd nationalist group but they have been killing civilians for twenty years. It is also claimed that the US government supports these terrorists because of their goals in Iraq. Military action may not be the solution but you should understand the human cost in Turkey and the way people cry out in the funerals. It is “inhumane” to dismiss these. You call these people gureilla so you should explain me why Palestinian organizations are terrorists, why Al-Qaida are terrorists. You people who kill other innocent people terrorist when they kill “Americans” ??
Both of them are terrorists, both of them should be condemned by the modern world in a much more sincere way than we do today.
By the way, what are these to do with the organization?????
OK, I am not a dark nationalist one but this kind of prejudice against Turkey is too much for me. Sitting in front of your computer and writing about things you just probably read from orientalists or people just complaining about the organization may not help you gentlemen.
About the allowance of the parents, I think it is a decision of organization which can be criticized heavily and I personally see problems in that. However, there were also problems in Belfort, it is not the first time and unfortunately the last time.As a journalist and an official reporter of the event I respect these criticisms since I also listened, observed such criticisms at the tournament hall today. But what about parents not complying with the procedures about the tournament hall and not being cooperative only caring about themselves.
Two issues to mention:
1. Online coverage. There are transmission of games of the 2-4 top boards + game with a turkish player. I would have no problem with that last game if there were at least 7-8 top boards. This is international competition and worldwide audience is bigger than just turkish one. And that larger audience wants to follow top boards whatever country players represent.
2. Another day Chessbase had a pictorial report where the vast majority of kids on the pictures are turkish players. Again, it is good for the local consumption, but chessbase.com has larger following with more diverse interests.