One day in the future, the Roma may be telling a story like this: “All of a sudden, the white man in Turkey came along, holding a law called ‘urban transformation.’ When we opened our eyes, our homes had disappeared and the white man’s plazas were rising in their place.”

A feverish process of redevelopment and construction has been underway in Turkey in recent years. The shanty towns in big cities are being evacuated, with their residents moving to cluster housing complexes that are being erected for them.

The undertaking may sound nice at first, since many regions in Turkey are first-degree seismic zones and homes there must be resilient to earthquakes and other natural disasters. Based on this seemingly justified consideration, thousands of homes are being confiscated and tens of thousands of people face compulsory migration.

The Roma community tops the list of those who are most affected by Turkey’s “urban transformation” policy. The Roma are being uprooted from their neighborhoods and traditional living spaces, forced to move to “modern” apartment blocks.