TC community activist dies, 69

A VETERAN Turkish Cypriot community activist in London died in the early hours of New Year’s Eve after battling cancer.

The death of 69-year-old father-of-two Hasan Raif brought many tributes, including from Haringey councillor Emine İbrahim, who said: “Hasan’s work within the Cypriot diaspora over decades and on the UK Cypriot Left cannot even be quantified.”

Born in Çanakkale (Kantou), a village near Limassol, the outbreak of intercommunal violence in December 1963 prompted Mr Raif to volunteer as a fighter (mücahit) to defend his community.

He began an undergraduate engineering course at İstanbul Technical University (ITU) in 1968 and rapidly became involved in left-wing politics.

After graduating in 1973, he returned to Cyprus and worked in a Greek Cypriot firm. He also joined the new, left-leaning Republican Turkish Party (CTP).

During the 1974 Turkish military intervention, Mr Raif took refuge in the British bases and afterwards crossed to the North along with thousands of other Turkish Cypriots, later becoming a CTP parliamentary candidate, a councillor and deputy leader of Güzelyurt Municipality Council.

After marriage to wife Gülşen in 1977, the couple moved to London where Mr Raif worked in construction and became active in Turkish Cypriot community politics, also becoming active in the Labour Party.

He was elected general secretary of the Turkish Cypriot Democracy Association (TCDA) but remained closely aligned with the politics of CTP, campaigning for justice and democracy for Turkish Cypriots, and seeing co-existence as key to achieving lasting peace in Cyprus.

He helped establish London’s Turkish Cypriot Community Association (TCCA), serving on its board of trustees, was on the management committee of the British Turkish Football Federation and was chairman and committee member of the Cypriot Community Centre in Wood Green.

He leaves his wife, daughter Sheniz and son Mehmet.