Demographics of Turkey are available for the Kurdish population, because the Turkish government has outlawed ethnic or racial censuses. An estimate by the CIA World Factbook places their proportion of the population at approximately 18%. Another estimate, according to Ibrahim Sirkeci, an ethnic Turk, in his book "The Environment of Insecurity in Turkey and the Emigration of Turkish Kurds to Germany", based on the 1990 Turkish Census and 1993 Turkish Demographic Health Survey, is 17.8%. Other estimates include 15.7% of the population according to the newspaper "Milliyet", and 23% by Kurdologist David McDowall. The Minority Rights Group report of 1985 (by Martin Short
Circassians in Turkey Circassians in Turkey The Circassians in Turkey (East Circassian and West Circassian: Адыгэхэр Тырку, "Adyghexer Tyrku"; ) are one of the largest ethnic minorities in Turkey, with a population between 130,000 and 2 million. The closely related ethnic groups Abazins (10,000) and Abkhazians (39,000) are also often counted among them. Circassians are a Caucasian immigrant people, but the vast majority of them have assimilated to the Turkish language, and only a small minority still speak their native Circassian languages. The Circassians in Turkey are almost exclusively Sunni Muslims of Hanafi madh'hab. In the census of 1965, 58,339 Turkish citizens spoke