The Turkish Daily NEWZ

Murders of Turkey’s non-Muslims await illumination

2012-01-22T17:17:00.000+02:00

In recent years, Turkey has been shaken by the murders of a number of prominent non-Muslims.
Some of their court cases received more attention than others, but lawyers suspect they might all be related. One such case was the murder of Catholic priest Andrea Santoro, who was killed in 2006 by a 16-year-old ultranationalist in his church in the Black Sea province of Trabzon. The Santoro case was completed with lightning speed.Then came the murder of Hrant Dink, the editor-in-chief of the İstanbul-based Turkish-Armenian Agos weekly.

The hitman was again an ultranationalist teenager. The court sentenced one suspect to life while acquitting all suspects of organized crime charges in the January 2007 murder. The high-profile case is expected to go to the Supreme Court of Appeals. After that, in April 2007, three Protestant missionaries were brutally murdered, bound to chairs, tortured and stabbed at the Zirve Publishing House in the eastern province of Malatya before their throats were slit. The publishing house printed Bibles and Christian literature.

In 2010, Catholic bishop Luigi Padovese, who led Father Santoro’s funeral service in 2007, was also brutally killed by his driver and bodyguard in the Mediterranean port of İskenderun in southern Turkey. The hearing of the case will be on Feb. 22, but the case has a low profile.

Ercan Eriş, the lawyer for the Roman Catholic Apostolic Vicariate of Anatolia, said the family of Bishop Padovese is not willing to pursue the case, just like the family of Father Santoro.

“I observe the hearings of the case on behalf of the church. We tried so hard to obtain formal permission from the family to represent them in order to pursue the case, but they are not interested in that. Therefore, the case is in the hands of the public prosecutor,” he said.

Eriş also said the reason behind the family’s unwillingness is totally based on the theological teaching of “forgiveness.” “Based on my previous experience, I can say their decision is related to their beliefs because in several other cases of attacks against churches and religious leaders, priests and churches have never filed official complaints,” he added.

However, things might change in the course of the case if new evidence emerges, just like in the case of the Malatya missionaries.

When Dink was killed five years ago, almost no one realized there might have been some links between the Dink, Santoro and Malatya murders except human rights lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz, who said this was the beginning of a pattern.

“We later found out about the Cage plan and learned how those involved in the Ergenekon gang had planned and carried out their attacks and their campaigns of intimidation against non-Muslims.
Murders of Turkey’s non-Muslims await illumination

Tens of Thousands Mark Journalist's Death

2012-01-19T19:22:00.001+02:00

Tens of thousands of protesters marked the fifth anniversary of a Turkish-Armenian journalist's murder on Thursday as outrage continues to grow over a trial that failed to shed light on alleged official negligence or even collusion.

Human rights activists placed red carnations on the spot in Istanbul where Hrant Dink was gunned down in broad daylight outside of his minority Agos newspaper office by a nationalist teenage gunman.

The case highlights Turkey's uneasy relationship with its ethnic and religious minorities, including at least 60,000 Armenian Christians. Many people carried black banners that read: "We are all Hrant, we are all Armenian," and some chanted "Turkey will be a grave for fascism."

Tens of thousands marched for justice, a call shared by Turkish leaders and leading businessmen who expressed unease over this week's sentencing of one man, Yasin Hayal, to life in prison for masterminding the killing, while another 17 were acquitted of charges of acting under a terrorist organization's orders. The court neglected to issue a verdict about a 19th suspect.

"The verdict is tragic and is weighing heavily on the conscience of everyone in Turkey," Rober Koptas, Dink's son-in-law and editor-in-chief of Agos, told AP television in an interview.

The gunman, Ogun Samast, was sentenced to nearly 23 years in prison in July by a separate juvenile court.

Umit Boyner, the head of Turkey's influential industrialists' association TUSIAD, said the court's decision had "shocked" the public.

"What we solidly see in this trial process is that the belief in justice has been shaken and weaknesses in our justice system have been revealed," he said.
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Turkey’s Greek minority to open school on Gökçeada

2012-01-19T08:01:00.001+02:00

The Ministry of Education has given permission to the Greek community to open a primary school on Gökçeada (Imbros), an island in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Çanakkale province.
Laki Vingas, elected representative of non-Muslim foundations at the Council of the General Assembly of the Directorate General for Foundations (VGM), was quoted in the Milliyet daily on Thursday as saying that the ministry gave permission verbally and that the Greeks of Gökçeada can start the process of opening a Greek school on the island.

Turkey's Greek schools are on the verge of closure because the Greek community's population is close to the point of extinction. There are estimated to be only 180-200 Turkish citizens of Greek origin on Gökçeada, and the number of Greek students expected to attend a Greek school on the island is expected to be low. But Vingas said that even if there are 10 students, the initiative would be important because it gives hopes for the future of the Greek community in Turkey.

Even though the Greek population in Turkey was no less than 100,000 in the 1930s, tension between Turkey and Greece has greatly affected their survival in Turkey. Following the İstanbul Riots of Sept. 6-7, 1955 and the 1964 deportation of roughly 12,000 ethnic Greeks without Turkish citizenship, the Greek population has been in constant decline. By 1966, the Greek population in İstanbul was reduced to less than 30,000 and it has been diminishing ever since. The population of Turkey's Greek community is estimated to be around 3,000 today.
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Anger in Istanbul over Dink murder trial

2012-01-19T07:55:00.001+02:00

Ruling in Hrant Dink murder case does not shed light on real instigators

2012-01-19T07:43:00.000+02:00

A Turkish court sentences Yasin Hayal to life in prison for instigating the assassination, but does not attribute any role to the terrorist organisation responsible for the murder of Fr Andrea Santoro in Trabzon and three Christians in Malatya. The ‘deep state’ is responsible for crimes designed to destabilise the country.
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Meleklere Kulak Verin - Turkish Christmas Music CD Available

2012-01-14T16:24:00.002+02:00

The first Turkish Christian Christmas music CD is available to listen to and to purchase via iTunes. Good music and a great way to support Christian work in Turkey!
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Five myths about anti-Christian persecution

2012-01-14T16:12:00.002+02:00

"In many countries, Christians are deprived of fundamental rights and sidelined from public life," he said. "In other countries, they endure violent attacks against their churches and their homes."

French intellectual Régis Debray, a veteran leftist who fought alongside Che Guevara in Bolivia, has observed that anti-Christian persecution unfolds squarely in the political blind spot of the West -- the victims are usually "too Christian" to excite the left, "too foreign" to interest the right.

As a contribution towards erasing that blind spot, let's debunk five common myths about anti-Christian persecution.

Myth No. 1: Christians are vulnerable only where they're a minority - According to October 2010 data from the Pew Forum, Christians face harassment in a staggering total of 133 countries, representing more than two-thirds of all nations on earth, including many where Christians are a strong majority.

Myth No. 2: It's all about Islam - Christians suffer from a slew of other forces, including:
Ultra-nationalism
Hindu radicalism
Buddhist radicalism
State-imposed security policies

Myth No. 3: No one saw it coming - Turkey offers an example. On June 3, 2010, Bishop Luigi Padovese, an Italian Capuchin and the Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia, was murdered by his driver, who claimed he had a private revelation identifying Padovese as the anti-Christ. Since the driver had been receiving psychiatric treatment, Turkish authorities announced there was no "political motive" and declared the case closed.
What that failed to acknowledge was the general climate in which a madman might get the idea that a Catholic bishop was evil.
Shortly after Padovese arrived in 2004, negotiations began toward Turkey's membership in the EU, inflaming nationalist resentments. Between that point and Padovese's death in 2010, a clear pattern of menace emerged to the tiny Christian minority (150,000 out of 72 million):
In 2005, polemical mini-dramas about the Crusades aired on Turkish television, which led to rocks being tossed through the windows of Christian churches, garbage being left on the doorsteps of churches and verbal abuse of Christian clergy in the streets.
Also in 2005, a sensational book was published by a Turk named Ilker Cinar, who claimed to be a former Protestant who had returned to Islam, titled I Was a Missionary -- the Code is Decoded. He claimed that Christians were working with Kurdish separatists and wanted to destroy the nation.
On Jan. 8, 2006, a Protestant church leader in Adana was beaten by five young men.
On Feb. 5, 2006, an Italian Catholic missionary named Fr. Andrea Santoro was shot to death in the city of Trabzon by a 16-year-old shouting "Allahu Akhbar." (Padovese celebrated the funeral Mass.)
In the weeks after Santoro's murder, Slovenian Fr. Martin Kmetec was thrown into a garden and threatened with death in the port city of Izmir, while French Fr. Pierre Brunissen was stabbed with a knife in the Black Sea port of Samsun.
On Jan. 19, 2007, a prominent Turkish Christian of Armenian descent, Hrant Dink, was assassinated in Istanbul.
On April 18, 2007, three Christian missionaries who ran a small publishing operation were murdered in Malatya.
In 2009, Turkish media published reports about the "Cage Plan," a scheme hatched by ultra-nationalists in tandem with elements of the military to destabilize the state through attacks on Christians, Armenians, Kurds, Jews and Alevis.
In that context, does it really make sense to style Padovese's murder as an isolated act? Or is it more accurate to say that even if no one could have predicted the precise time and target of the next attack, Turkey had allowed a perilous climate to fester?

Myth No. 4: It's only persecution if the motives are religious - today's risks are hardly limited to classic instances of martyrdom, but a wide variety of circumstances in which Christians are in harm's way. Even if they're not attacked for religious motives, their reasons for being in that spot are usually rooted in their faith.

Myth No. 5: Anti-Christian persecution is a right-wing issue - The truth is that persecution against Christians, ideologically speaking, is an equal-opportunity enterprise.
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The Hagia Sophia, and Freedom of Religion

2012-01-11T14:24:00.002+02:00

The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, not far from the well known Blue Mosque, has been the centre point of the Eastern Orthodox Church for over one thousand years. The first recorded structure dates back to the 4th century. The current structure was built in the 6th century. In 1453, Sultan Mehmed II conquered Constantinople, renamed it to Istanbul and converted the Hagia Sophia to an Islamic mosque. Then, in 1935, with the secularization of Turkey under Kemal Ataturk, the Hagia Sophia was declared to be a state-owned museum. It still is an imposing edifice today.

The Hagia Sophia is a religious monument to Christian heritage and beliefs and has served as the principal church of the Orthodox Church for over one thousand years. Despite that history, it could not be re-dedicated as a church under the current laws in Turkey. The country, though officially separating the affairs of church and state as per Ataturk’s reforms, still upholds the Islamic law which prevents any non-Islamic faith from owning any property, for any purpose. What is largely unknown in western countries is that no faith, other than Islam, is permitted to possess any property whatsoever in an Islamic country, not even in Turkey.

In recent years, many western, predominantly Christian countries have gone to great lengths to accommodate customs and religions of immigrants from other parts of the globe within their realms. Especially the believers of Islam are vigorously claiming various rights based on the basis of ‘freedom of religion’ enshrined in the secular laws of much of the western world.

Believers in Islam, and even more so their religious leaders, should insist on the same freedom of religion and associated rights that they claim for themselves, for any non-Islamic believers in Islamic countries, with equal fervor. Without such affirmations, both in word and deed, Islamic claims to religious freedom (in the West) are mere hollow requests for benevolence for their own sake. True freedom can only be gained by advocating it for others as well as oneself.

Foremost though, it should be incumbent for any leader of western world countries to insist on full reciprocity of a (western style) freedom of religion in Islamic countries, when contemplating any financial assistance to them or a political engagement.

The current status of the Christian Hagia Sophia and other places of non-Islamic worship demonstrate a continued oppression of non-Islamic religions in Islamic countries, even in ‘secular’ Turkey. The West needs to recognize such and act accordingly.
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Turkish Mufti : Santa Claus would use front door if he was a decent person

2012-01-11T14:14:00.002+02:00

A common point of discussion in Turkey is to talk against celebrating Christmas, because it has the potential to convert people to Christianity. A local religious leader had some funny commentary on this:

"The Muftı of Kesan ( a small town in NW Turkey) is the order of the day in Turkey with his statements on Santa Claus.

Süleyman Yeniçeri (the last name means Janissary in Turkish) is hot topic in Turkey, after the mufti stressed his opinion about Santa Claus and the adoptation of Christian Christmas and new year habits into Turkish and Muslim Life. The brilliant statement of Yeniçeri was : ”New year celebrations are not part of our (Turkish) culture. There is no person as Santa Claus. There is one Saint Nick, yes, but he is merely a fabrication. It is yet not clear if santa or Saint nick has ever lived or not. Santa Claus uses chimneys or windows to enter homes. If he was a decent person, he would use the front door.”

The brilliant mufti continued :” Why are we trying to impersonate the Christian lifestyle. Do they [Christians] try to copy our ways of living ? Christmas and New Year Celebrations are imports from Christian World. Christmas is not our rejoicing or holiday. Koran says do enter using the front door.”

Though most Turks are Muslim and do not celebrate the Christmas Holiday, they nevertheless are well aware of the famous gift-bearing Saint and know him fondly as “Noel Baba” (Father Christmas). The ritual of gift-giving around the Christmas season has caught on as a tradition in many Turkish households and among friends and usually occurs on New Year’s Eve rather than on the eve of December 24th. Christmas trees too abound in cosmopolitain cities like Istanbul with small replicas for sale at major department stores."
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Harmony schools causing discord

2012-01-03T09:46:00.002+02:00

These schools are common throughout Texas and related schools have opened up in many parts of the US as well as the rest of the world. It's interesting to see that Muslim missionaries are using many of the strategies that were used previously by western missionaries. This article talks about some of the controversy regarding these schools:

"The 36 schools that make up the Harmony charter school network are among the highest-rated in Texas. But despite its glowing academic record, Harmony has received a flurry of criticism for its business practices. In particular, the charter network's reliance on visas for Turkish-born staff and use of Turkish-owned businesses for construction and other contracts has raised questions about how it spends taxpayer money and whether it is too insular.

In just more than a decade, Harmony Public Schools, operated by the Cosmos Foundation of Houston, has grown to become one of the largest charter school networks in Texas, serving about 16,700 students last school year. Two schools, with about 900 students last year, are in San Antonio. Some Harmony critics point to a burgeoning number of Turkish-American-led charter networks in the United States, more than 120 in 25 states, that they say are tied to Islamic political leader Fethullah Gulen.
“The only crime is that they're Turkish,” State Board of Education member and early Harmony supporter David Bradley said. “And in Texas, that is not a crime.” From 2008 to 2010, the Labor Department certified 1,197 H-1B visa requests from the Cosmos Foundation — more than double the number of visas certified nationwide for Texas-based computer company Dell USA and about 70 percent as many as were certified for tech giant Apple Inc.

Those certifications were forwarded to the Homeland Security Department for final approval. The visas are intended to attract foreign workers with skills that are in short supply among American workers. Harmony has about 290 employees working on H-1B visas, or 16 percent of its workforce, according to Superintendent Soner Tarim. Most are Turkish, said Tarim, who is also from Turkey. Few other Texas school districts hire significant numbers of workers on H-1B visas.

Like most charter school operators, Harmony's first schools opened in former stores and spaces leased from churches. Harmony still operates some storefront campuses, but over time began to build its own schools using money from the sale of public bonds.
Tarim bristled at the implication that the charter network was giving much of its work to a closed circle of Turkish-owned businesses.

“That's actually a misconception,” he said. The Cosmos Foundation does award many contracts to businesses owned by non-Turks. But in recent years, eight of the charter network's 10 largest contracts have gone to just two companies, both of which have close ties to Cosmos: the Houston-based contracting firms Solidarity Contracting and TDM Contracting."

Read more:

Historical Armenian Church re-opens in Istanbul

2011-12-29T08:59:00.000+02:00

Built in 1828, but abandoned 100 years ago, during the conflict between Armenia and the Ottoman Empire, its restoration was part of Istanbul's 2010 European capitol of Culture's heritage and preservation projects.

Yet under the current political air, the re-opening of an Armenian Church has even greater significance. Turkey's current dispute with France over their government's approval of the “Armenian bill” has thrown Turkey's relations with its Armenian population under the spotlight.

Turkey says the deaths of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire during World War 1, was a “fight between two good friends” and to recognize them as otherwise is reactionary.

But Turkish Armenians and 20 countries around the world, including France, don't see it that way.

The killing/murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007 by Ogün Samast, a 17-year old Turkish nationalist, shows how fragile that friendship is.
Link

Christians in Turkey festively celebrate Christmas

2011-12-28T10:02:00.001+02:00

The thousands of Christians in Turkey began their Christmas celebrations on Dec. 24, and several religious ceremonies were held in different churches as political figures like the president and prime minister issued holiday messages.
İstiklal Street was the center of activity where Christians gathered together to spend the evening. Some joined parties while many others went to church to pray.

Many Catholics celebrated Christmas with a religious service on the night of Dec. 24 at St. Antuan Church on İstiklal Street. The evening Christmas Eve service commemorates the fact that Jesus was born at night, more than 2,000 years ago.

Along with Christians, Muslims also visited the church that evening to watch the service. After singing hymns, bread spread with butter and marmite was distributed to visitors.

On Friday, President Abdullah Gül issued a Christmas message. Emphasizing that traditions and customs that have evolved over the centuries tie citizens together, Gül said in the message that “our values such as solidarity, good faith and compassion that also reflect the spirit of Christmas form the most valuable part of our common heritage. In this sense, I wish our citizens of all Christian traditions and the entire Christian world a Merry Christmas, lots of happiness and much success.”

Another ceremony was held at the Fener Greek Patriarchate on Sunday morning, Christmas Day.

Along with local Orthodox Christians, hundreds of Orthodox Christians from different provinces of Turkey and abroad attended the service led by Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew. The service began at 9 a.m. in the Aya Yorgi church located in the garden of the Fener Greek Patriarchate.

Guests took photo of themselves in front of the decorated Christmas tree in the garden.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Saturday that "we have lived on this soil together by sharing a common destiny and history and displaying tolerance, respect and understanding for each other."

In his Christmas message, Erdoğan said the residents of Turkey continue to live together as equal citizens and in unity.

“I believe that the spirit of unity and the climate of mutual love and respect will get stronger in the future. With these thoughts, I wish all Christians a happy Christmas in tranquility and in peace,” Erdoğan said.
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Istanbul allocates some EUR 1,2 million for Saint Stephen church restoration

2011-12-16T10:02:00.001+02:00

The municipality of Istanbul has allocated about TRY 2,5 million, or EUR 1,2 million, for the restoration of the Bulgarian church there Saint Stephen, architect Vasil Kitov, a Bulgarian observer of the repair and restoration works in the church, said in an interview with FOCUS News Agency.
However, it might turn out that the money will not be enough. My colleagues in Istanbul have told me that if more money is necessary for the restoration, it will not be a problem for the local authorities to approve it, he added.
He also said that a Bulgarian campaign is raising money for the restoration of the church’s iconostasis.
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İnanç Özgürlüğü Girisimi (Türkiye) / Freedom of Religion or Belief Initiative in Turkey

2011-12-11T21:58:00.002+02:00

New blog to read
My friend's wife has started an excellent new blog on the subject of religious freedom in Turkey. Most of the articles are in Turkish, but she often writes a summary in English at the bottom of each article. I will be highlighting certain posts from time to time, but this blog would make an excellent add to your feed list.
Link

Turkey Uncovers Al-Qaida Plot To Bomb Churches

2011-12-11T21:48:00.000+02:00

Suspected members of terror group al-Qaida faced additional charges Saturday, December 10, including planning to bomb churches in the capital Ankara, Turkish media reported.

About a dozen militants who are already accused of planning to attack the United States Embassy in the capital had also plotted to target churches and Turkey's parliament, said the influential Taraf daily, which claimed to have seen the indictments against 11 alleged militants.

It said police also seized plans how to target the parliament building and a list of churches as well as names and home addresses of church staffers in Ankara.

Besides chapels on Ankara’s British, French, Greek, Italian and Vatican embassy grounds, the capital city has several international churches and some Turkish Protestant congregations.

Those mentioned are among 14 suspected al-Qaida militants police detained in a series of raids across western Turkey in July. They included alleged al-Qaida members with 700 kilograms of explosives, officials said.

Turkish officials said at the time that the militants were almost ready to attack the embassy when they were captured in July, just ahead of a visit to the nation by U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The additional planned bombing of churches is the latest in a series of sometimes deadly violence against Christians in this heavily Islamic nation.
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Turkey: Mystery Surrounds Decision to Turn Byzantine Church Museum into a Mosque | EurasiaNet.org

2011-12-03T09:18:00.000+02:00

In its 1,700-year-old history, Hagia Sophia in the northwestern town of Iznik has witnessed many turning points. In 787, as a Byzantine church, it housed the Second Council of Nicaea, which restored the veneration of icons to Christianity. After the Ottoman conquest of the area, Hagia Sophia in 1331 was turned into a mosque, only to be destroyed in 1922 by the Greek army during the Greco-Turkish War.

Then, this November 6, the building, a museum and popular Iznik tourist destination, underwent its latest transformation: It officially reopened as a mosque.

The first call to prayer had resounded from its minaret five days earlier, on the evening of November 1. With a new wooden floor, carpets and a sound system for the minaret, Hagia Sophia was opened to Muslim worshippers during Kurban Bayrami, the Festival of Sacrifice, a four-day Islamic holiday that commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Ishmael, at God’s command.

But a day after the holidays, the mosque remained half-empty during noon prayers. Hagia Sophia’s latest transformation has created controversy not only among archeologists, historians and politicians, but also among local residents.

“There are so many mosques in the city and around here,” said Irfan Karaman, who runs a small restaurant across from the Byzantine building. “In my opinion, it was utterly unnecessary to turn the Hagia Sophia into one as well.”

He claimed that many people in Iznik feel similarly. “Before it was seven lira (about $3.83) to enter,” Karaman added, laughing. “At least now it’s free. It looks like our religion is cheaper than yours!”

Historian and documentary filmmaker Ömer Tuncer, also an Iznik resident, agrees. “This is a question of respect. What would Muslims say if the Al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem] was turned into a church now? The Hagia Sophia in Iznik is an important symbol in Christian faith, a place of pilgrimage,” Tuncer said. “It is clear that a building like this needs to be protected as a museum.”

Acknowledgements of Turkey’s Islamic heritage and beliefs have become more frequent in recent years, but the conversion of Iznik’s Hagia Sofia does not appear to stem from any government policy by the ruling, Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party. Although the changeover from a museum has sparked national debate, the decision is seen as locally rooted. Attendants at Hagia Sophia, however, declined to speak with EurasiaNet.org about the mosque opening.

Those siding with the conversion project argue that Hagia Sophia has never been a museum. “This historical building was used as a mosque for 680 years, and has been in disrepair ever since 1922,” Adnan Ertem, head of the central government’s Directorate of Religious Foundations, asserted to Turkish media. “To hear the Muslim call to prayer in this house of worship made us all happy.”

Apparently, the entrance fee charged to tourists in the past escaped the notice of Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arinç, who also maintains that the building “was never a museum.”

“It is possible that it was used as a church in the past,” Arinç told Turkish media. “But ever since the conquest of Bursa [in 1326], it has been used as a mosque.”

However, both the Governorate of Bursa, the administrative district in which Iznik is located, and the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism have listed and promoted the Iznik Hagia Sophia as a museum on their Turkish-language websites.

The explanation could lie in a red-tape loop-hole, Tuncer hypothesized. “Just as with the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, there was never an official law to turn the Hagia Sophia in Iznik into a museum,” he commented. “That is why it is still listed as a mosque with the Directorate of Religious Foundations, but as a museum with the Ministry of Culture.”

After renovation of the building was finished in 2007, the Hagia Sophia was opened as a museum, and the local governorate placed a ticket booth at its entrance. Restaurant owner Karaman fears that the decision to turn the building now into an mosque will negatively impact the tourism sector, an important source of income for many Iznik residents.

Representatives of the Ministry of Culture were not available to comment about the changeover, but Tuncer asserts that “[i]t is up to them to veto this decision, and to protect buildings like this one.”

“When the church was turned into a mosque in 1331, it was a mere symbol of conquest, it happened in many cities,” he continued. “But in our times, this decision seems incomprehensible to me.”

Turkey: Mystery Surrounds Decision to Turn Byzantine Church Museum into a Mosque | EurasiaNet.org

Attacks on missionaries continue, journalist says

2011-11-28T13:20:00.001+02:00

After years of trials, investigations, media reports and countless allegations, a case into the notorious torture and murder of three missionaries in Malatya has yet to reach any satisfactory conclusion. A recent book on the subject, however, seeks to cut through the conjecture to shed important light on the background and details of the massacre.

Written by journalist İsmail Saymaz, “Hatred” (Nefret) examines the connections between Turkey’s extreme and almost “paranoid” measures toward missionary activities and the number of attacks against missionaries and churches in recent years.

Starting with the 1999 earthquake, in which more than 17,000 people lost their lives, Saymaz’s book demonstrates how certain media outlets and politicians claimed that the tragic disaster was being used for missionary propaganda.

“During the four years following the quake, 293 people, who were either opening churches or distributing the Bible, were sent to legal authorities for criminal acts,” Saymaz wrote in his book.

Just 54 people were identified as missionaries in Turkey in 2000, but Turkey’s National Security Council (MGK) subsequently took up the issue on the grounds that such activities posed a major threat to the country.

“After the MGK [declared] missionaries as a national threat, the police raided several Protestant churches with guns in those years. Turkey’s Intelligence Service counted missionary acts as a second-degree religious threat. Many missionaries were followed by the police or gendarmerie. Turkey’s Religious Affairs [Directorate] distributed millions of Qurans with the support of politicians and the media. A common enemy was created through common action,” Saymaz told the Hürriyet Daily News in an interview last week.

Malatya murders

“Hatred” focuses on the Malatya massacre, in which three missionaries, German citizen Tillman Geske and two Turks, Necati Aydın and Uğur Yüksel, were tied up and tortured before having their throats slit at the Zirve Publishing House, a Christian publisher, in the eastern province of Malatya on April 18, 2007.

Five young men, aged 19 and 20 at the time of the killings, confessed to the murder and were arrested for the crime. However, authorities are continuing to investigate the matter, which is believed by many to be an act of the “deep state” rather than a group of independent fanatics.

Saymaz reported the claims that one of the suspects, Emre Günaydın, may have been working with the police at the time. According to the testimony of other suspects, Günaydın had certain connections with police officers, the book said.

Another important finding of the book of the book is the revelation that police found a gun on Günaydın the day before the murders. Although that gun was seized by the police, they did not search his car, which allegedly contained two more guns – one of which was allegedly later used in the murder.

“We don’t know what connections Günaydın may have or whether the guns were ever found and not confiscated. But we do know that although the suspects are five young men, this was murder by tacit mandate,” Saymaz said.
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Turkish Christians aid earthquake victims - News with a Christian Perspective

2011-11-13T18:22:00.000+02:00

A small evangelical church in eastern Turkey is helping victims of two earthquakes who are sleeping in tents around the church.

The city of Van in eastern Turkey became the hub for aid workers and reporters after the Oct. 23 quake, but not all the help is coming from outside Turkey.

Other churches from across Turkey also have sent volunteers to the evangelical church in Van, which is coordinating their efforts in food distribution and medical care.

People by the dozens gather at the church daily. Believers feed them and share Christ's love.

"There aren't many of us, and we are tired," a member of the Van church said, "but we are doing all we can.

"They see the love and they are able to hear why we do this."

Among the quake victims: Fatma and her family, who are homeless and sockless. The refugees from Afghanistan had just moved into new housing when a 7.2-magnitude earthquake occurred Oct. 23 in eastern Turkey, killing about 600 people.

Fatma said she hasn't felt safe since. Neither do the others who share an open lot with her, living in tents between damaged buildings.

It's hard to blame them. Fear is rampant. Dozens of aftershocks shake the ground daily. The area sits on several major faults. Many people lost family and friends in the quake.

Survivors sleep in tents in sub-freezing weather without proper clothing. They run the risk of bronchitis -- and worse -- from the cold as well as the smoky fires lit inside their tents for warmth.

Some buildings still standing could crumble at any moment. Others are safe, but officials can't coax people back into them.

That task will be even harder now that a second tremor, a 5.6 magnitude, took down 25 weakened buildings on Nov. 9, just 17 days after the first quake.

Baptist Press - Turkish Christians aid earthquake victims - News with a Christian Perspective

Turkey's minorities still skeptical about new constitution - Hurriyet Daily News

2011-11-09T09:52:00.000+02:00

There are great expectations in the government camp as the process for the preparation of a new constitution is under way, but some members of the minorities voice their concerns about the new charter.

Representatives of Turkey’s various minority communities have expressed skepticism regarding ongoing efforts to draft a new constitution for the country.

“Considering the current political conditions in Turkey, I do not believe the new constitution will be an egalitarian one that embraces all sections of society,” Arev Cebeci, a Turkish-Armenian who became a candidate nominee for the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in the most recent election, recently told the Hürriyet Daily News.

If a new constitution is drafted, then it will be the first time such a text will be produced in a democratic milieu since the establishment of the founding constitution of 1924. Other previous constitutions were written in the wake of military coups in 1961 and 1980.

Despite all the pessimism and lukewarm attitude toward the new constitution, however, certain members of the Anatolian Greek and Bulgarian minorities remain hopeful.

“The new constitution is being prepared in goodwill. I have no doubts about this. I am certain this will be an egalitarian and successful constitution,” Dimitri Zotos, one of the managers of the Anatolian Greek Foundations Association (RUMVADER), told the Daily News.

“We expect freedom and democracy. Of course, everything will not be flawless, but the idea of a new constitution is a positive idea. The work is hope-inspiring,” Lüben Chalmov of the Bulgarian Community Council told the Daily News.

Turkey's minorities still skeptical about new constitution - Hurriyet Daily News

Turkey Earthquake: Christians Respond to 7.2 Quake

2011-10-25T11:58:00.000+03:00

The Christian group, Baptist Global Response has offered aid to those affected by the massive 7.2 magnitude earthquake that hit Turkey Sunday Oct. 23.

“Teams are within hours of arriving in the area with tarps and other supplies to assist survivors,” said Patrick J. Melancon, managing director of disaster response and training at BGR, in a press release Monday, Oct. 24.

“The teams are a part of the network of responders trained by Baptist Global Response to provide both rapid response and longer-term assessments during a crisis like this one. These teams provide local response capability wherever the teams may reside,” he added.

The earthquake hit Sunday afternoon and lasted 25 seconds. The provincial capital of Van and the eastern city of Ercis were hit hardest.

Ercis, with a population of 75,000, is categorized as one of Turkey’s most earthquake-prone zones. According to CNN, the earthquake has killed more than 270 people and injured more than 1,000.

“Turkey is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because it sits on major geological fault lines,” reported BBC News.
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Armenians claim roots in Diyarbakır

2011-10-24T11:25:00.001+03:00

A group of Armenians, raised as Sunni Muslims, will be baptized today as Armenian Orthodox christians at the historic St. Giragos (Surp Giragos) Armenian Church in Turkey’s southeastern province of Diyarbakır.

The church, which was reopened on Oct. 22 following two years of restoration work, will host the baptism ceremony for dozens of Sunni Muslims of Armenian origin, whose ancestors converted to Islam after the 1915 killings in the Ottoman era.

Among those to be baptized is Gaffur Türkay, who also contributed to the restoration of the church. Türkay was going through emotional fluctuations, he told the Hürriyet Daily News.

“I wish this church had always been open,” he said. “It is unbelievable to be together here with people from all around the world with whom I share the same origins.”

“We have been ostracized by both Sunni Muslims and Armenians,” said Behçet Avcı, also known as Garod Sasunyan, who will also be baptized. “It is a very emotional moment for me and I’m a bit upset, because unfortunately we do not belong to either side.”

The baptism ceremony, which will be closed to the press and outside visitors, will be held today at the St. Giragos Armenian Church and will be led by Deputy Patriarch Archbishop Aram Ateşyan. The names of those to be baptized will not be revealed for security reasons.

A religious service was held yesterday at the church, one day after it was re-opened following the completion of the restoration work.
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Turkey: world's largest unreached people group?

2011-10-21T14:52:00.002+03:00

It's called the largest unreached people group in the world. It's a country that was the focus of the Apostle Paul's writings in Scripture, yet today it's a spiritually dark place. We're talking about the country of Turkey. It's a country in which being a Christian can cost you your life, or at the very least can cause you to be an outcast of society.

The Evangelical Alliance Mission, or TEAM, operates the government-approved St. Paul Cultural Center in Antalya. It had been closed because of bureaucratic red tape. TEAM Missionary James Bultema says, "The issue with our architect has been fully resolved, and SPCC Antalya is advancing by the day toward full operational mode. Each week, the number of activities picks up, and by the end of October we will be, Lord willing, back into full swing. One final permit is yet to be obtained, but no significant barrier stands in the way of our getting it, just a bit more work."

Pastor Koc came to Christ through the Cultural Center. "I went there to meet with a Turkish pastor and heard the Gospel; I quickly changed my life and came to Christ."

As he was discipled and received Bible training, Koc started only the second church in Antalya with a couple of people. In 18 months, 10 people have given their hearts to Christ. Now he's the pastor of a church of about 20 families. Pastor Koc says it's a challenge being a new Christian in Turkey "because all of a sudden, everything changes. One of my friends who is a lawyer came to Christ, and he said, 'Now what am I going to do? If I can't lie, I cannot be a lawyer in Turkey.' In many jobs, they ask you to lie in many situations. So, it is very difficult for Christians to find a job."
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Baptists in Iraqi's Kurdistan Mark Historic Milestone for Christians

2011-10-16T21:05:00.001+03:00

Just as the sun was rising in the west Sept. 29, a new day dawned in Iraqi Kurdistan as Governor Tamar Ramadhan gave Baptists two acres of land worth $2 million for the Grace Baptist Cultural Center--a multi-phase project including a medical clinic, school, athletic facility, church building and seminary in the town of Simele.

Standing in for Ramadhan, Gurgis Shlaymun, the deputy governor of Kurdistan's Regional Government in Dohuk, joined a team from Hillcrest Baptist Church in Pensacola, along with Iraqi, Jordanian and Brazilian Baptists and other evangelical Christians at an hour-long ceremony prior to cementing the top on an engraved, marble cornerstone marking the new property.

Shlaymun, an Assyrian Christian first elected to his post in the Muslim majority government in 2005, delivered remarks at a community center near the undeveloped property in the growing village of Simele. In the Duhok Province of Iraqi's Kurdistan, Simele is on the main road of an agricultural plain about 10 miles from the Turkish border.
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Turkey's Elephant in the Room: Religious Freedom

2011-09-29T09:29:00.001+03:00

With his triumphant tour of the countries of the Arab Spring this month, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has managed to set up Turkey on the international stage as a role model for a secular democracy in a Muslim country — as, in his words, “a secular state where all religions are equal.”

The only trouble is that he has yet to make that happen for Turkey.

The relationship between religion and the state, ever the sore spot of Turkish identity, is one of the most explosive issues of the debate on the new constitution that Mr. Erdogan has pledged to give the country in the new legislative term that opens Saturday.

That debate will have to deal with the elephant in the room: the total control that the state exerts over Islam through its Religious Affairs Department, and the lack of a legal status for all other religions in a predominantly Sunni Muslim society.

“Turkey may look like a secular state on paper, but in terms of international law it is actually a Sunni Islamic state,” Izzettin Dogan, a leader of the country’s Alevi minority, charged at a joint press conference with leaders of several other minority faiths last week in Istanbul.

Mr. Dogan is honorary president of the Federation of Alevi Foundations, which represents many of what it claims are up to 30 million adherents of the Alevi faith, an Anatolian religion close to Sufi Islam but separate and distinct in its beliefs and practices.

“The state collects taxes from all of us and spends billions on Sunni Islam alone, while millions of Alevis as well as Christians, Jews and other faiths don’t receive a penny,” Mr. Dogan said, referring to the $1.5 billion budget of the Religious Affairs Department. “What kind of secularism is that?”

A bureaucratic juggernaut with its own news service and a dedicated trade union, the Religious Affairs Department employs more than 106,000 civil servants, according to its latest annual report, including 60,000 imams and 10,000 muezzins, all of them trained, hired and fired by the state.

At the institution’s ministry-size headquarters in Ankara, state-employed astronomers calculate prayer times around the world, while state-educated theologians pore over the hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad in the library and issue the religious rulings known as fatwas.

The department writes the sermons for Friday Prayer in mosques across the country as well as the textbooks for the religious instruction that is mandatory in schools. It publishes books and periodicals in languages including Tatar, Mongol and Uygur, and issues an iPhone app featuring Koranic verses and a prayertime alarm. The department has a monopoly on Koran courses in the country, and it organizes the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, right down to the vaccination of pilgrims.

So centralized is the department’s control that its new president, Mehmet Gormez, is considered innovative for announcing his intention to train preachers to deliver sermons in person, instead of having them piped into the mosque from the department over a public-address system.

“In Turkey, Islam does not determine politics, but politics determine Islam,” Gunter Seufert, a sociologist, concluded in a 2004 study of the department entitled “State and Islam in Turkey.”

“Run by a state agency, religion serves the nation state for the purpose of unifying the nation and Westernizing its Muslims,” he added.
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Archbishop:Turkey destroys religious heritage in occupied Cyprus

2011-09-27T10:51:00.000+03:00

Archbishop of Cyprus Chrysostomos II has indicted Turkey for the destruction of holy sites in the northern Turkish occupied areas of the island, calling on the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Georgia, Elias, to assist in any way possible and to exert pressure on the matter in the international arena.

The Archbishop, who paid an official visit to the Orthodox Church of Georgia, at the invitation of Patriarch Elias, was speaking at a concelebrating ceremony on Sunday in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi.

He said that more than 500 Orthodox churches and monasteries in the occupied areas are in a miserable condition.

“Some of these churches and monasteries have been destroyed, others have been transformed into mosques, night clubs, army camps even stables. Our holy icons and other religious items have been sold to Europe and America”, he noted.

He said that the Church of Cyprus has been long demanding a permit from the illegal Turkish Cypriot regime in order to repair these churches and monasteries, however there has been no response so far.

The Archbishop also referred to the Cyprus problem, noting that Turkey illegally invaded Cyprus in 1974, occupying 37% of the country, adding that it wants to take over the occupied areas and the rest of Cyprus.

Turkey, he pointed out, is implementing “ethnic cleansing” tactics in Cyprus, by driving away all Christian Orthodox from their homeland and bringing Muslim settlers from Anatolia, changing the demographics of the whole of Cyprus.

He spoke of the very good relations between the Church of Cyprus and the Orthodox Church of Georgia, noting that a great number of Georgians today reside and work in Cyprus.

Since the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, hundreds of valuable artifacts have been stolen from the northern Turkish occupied areas of the island and found their way into the black market overseas. More than 500 churches have been pillaged, destroyed or turned into museum, inns or silos. Many archaeological sites and other places belonging to the country’s 9,000 year old cultural heritage have been abandoned to the elements.

The Church of Cyprus has, at different times, managed to secure the return of stolen religious items, illegally stolen and sold on the black market abroad.
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Religious groups call on gov’t to draft secular constitution

2011-09-20T07:38:00.000+03:00

A number of religious groups' leaders who gathered on Monday to introduce a study on the demands of various religious groups in Turkey said that the new constitution of the country should be secular.

“This is a Sunni state because the Religious Affairs Directorate sponsors only the affairs of Sunni adherents of Islam. No Jewish, no Christian, no Alevi can get a cent from the huge budget of the directorate. There is no such secular state in the world,” said İzzettin Doğan, the head of the Cem Foundation, an Alevi organization.

Speaking at the release of the study, “Belief Groups in Turkey: A new framework aimed at issues and demands,” hosted by the İstanbul Policy Center at Sabancı University and its Education Reform Initiative, Doğan emphasized the importance of being neutral, non-discriminative and maintaining an equal distance to all belief groups in a secular state.

“The Religious Affairs Directorate should be restructured from A to Z to include all religious groups,” Doğan added and said that their work will help to push the government to not put its intentions to make a new constitution aside.

The report’s suggestions included that opening places of worship should be a right; the state should take initiatives regarding handing down religious beliefs from one generation to another, religious leaders’ selection and education; beliefs and members of religious groups should not be seen as threatening elements to societal and cultural security, and they should be treated as Turkey’s historical and cultural richness; and all religious groups should be treated equally without discriminating against them.
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Christian TV Expands Its Middle East/North Africa Footprint

2011-09-15T19:06:00.000+03:00

It may seem odd, but a Christian TV network for and by people of the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region is expanding its footprint and making inroads despite regional turmoil and fears of rising Islamic fundamentalism.

"We don't attack Islam and present the Christian faith in a positive way, on women, disabilities, and other matters," said Terence Ascott, CEO of Sat-7. "We don't want to get into a debate, into a polemic, on the air."

In 15 years of existence Ascott and his associates have attracted over 15 million viewers in a region that's mostly Muslim -- not by converting Muslims, but by creating an environment that's less hostile towards Christians.
"It's a human right for everyone in the world to hear the Christian message and decide whether or not to embrace it. It's our right to propagate the truth of our faith," he added.

It may seem like a tall order for this transplanted Brit who has lived in the Middle East for decades and hops around from his Cyprus headquarters to run five satellite TV ministry channels, primarily in Arabic, but more recently in Farsi (Persian) and Turkish.

One way to avoid issues that divide Christians where so many denominations and sects exist, is not covering the sacraments, though some programs about how different churches define the sacraments may be aired.
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Some religious groups face difficulties in Turkey

2011-09-15T19:04:00.000+03:00

Despite the fact that Turkey’s constitution protects religious freedom, some constitutional provisions regarding the integrity and existence of the secular state restrict these rights.

The International Religious Freedom Report issued by State Department says some religious groups also faced difficulties regarding freedom of worship, registration with the government, property ownership, and the training of their followers and clergy.

“There were reports of societal abuses and discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief, or practice. Threats against non-Muslims created an atmosphere of pressure and diminished freedom for some non-Muslim communities. Many Christians, Bahais, Jews, and Alevis faced societal suspicion and mistrust, and some elements of society continued to express anti-Semitic sentiments.

Additionally persons wishing to convert from Islam sometimes experienced social harassment and violence from relatives and neighbors,” the report reads.

It mentions that the religious groups lost numerous properties to the state in the past and continued to fight efforts by the state to expropriate properties.
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Armenians hold second religious ceremony at Akdamar church

2011-09-12T07:44:00.001+03:00

A second religious ceremony has been held since the historic Sept. 19, 2010 service at the Armenian Church of the Holy Cross on the island of Akdamar in the eastern province of Van on Sunday.

Hymns and prayers resonated on Akdamar Island in 2010, 95 years after religious services ended in the Armenian Church of the Holy Cross, which occupies a special place in medieval Armenian art and architecture and is a jewel for Turkey, as indicated by Turkish and foreign observers.

Known in English as the Cathedral Church of the Holy Cross, the church was in ruins and on the verge of collapse. However, by order of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism started a restoration project in 2005 to preserve the historical identity of the church. The church has since become a hotspot for domestic and international tourists since being opened as a museum by the ministry after its restoration work was completed in 2007.

Turkey’s Sacred Ruins

2011-09-06T12:01:00.002+03:00

For souls in torment, your helpful guidebook might say, there’s no better destination than the holy sites of Turkey’s Hatay province. I rediscovered the area’s sacred legacy on a recent visit to the frontier between Turkey and Syria, some 35 years after I had lived briefly in Hatay as a boy mesmerized by the dreamy sensation of ancient time. My physician father roamed the hospitals of the province, a tendril of Turkish territory that juts into Syria along the Mediterranean. During his work trips, he often took me to see mysterious ruins.

This past June, I returned to Hatay to report on the border-crossing stories of refugees fleeing war-torn Syria. I stayed with other colleagues at a hotel in the little town of Harbiye, about six kilometers from Antioch en route to the mountainous border. Antioch is the provincial capital, famous for its spicy approach to Turkish food, for founding the earliest Christian churches, for the river Orontes threading like a ganglion of history along its length. Modern Antiochenes surprise visitors with their relaxed and mild secularism—no women in black veils here; lots of flesh and shapely clothing and fraternizing between the sexes.
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A "satisfied" Bartholomew I hopes for the reopening of the Halki School

2011-09-06T10:05:00.000+03:00

Bartholomew I, ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, has expressed great satisfaction with the decision of Prime Minister Erdogan Tayep to return properties confiscated after 1936 to all non-Islamic minorities. At the same time, meeting the Turkish prime minister, he expressed the hope that there will be "further steps". Erdogan replied, "This is just the beginning."

The patriarch also strongly hopes in the return and the theological school of Halki to the Orthodox Church, and that the academy, which the Turkish government closed in 1971, will be re-opened.
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Tax-funded charter schools founded by Turkish Muslims are trying to practice but not preach

2011-09-01T11:50:00.001+03:00

A sign outside the Albuquerque School of Excellence in New Mexico proclaims, "College ready, Career ready, Life ready." The ASE building is a former Safeway, freshly painted neon orange and yellow. Inside, Chinese dragons, colorful butterflies, and self-portraits adorn the bright blue, yellow, and red halls, remnants of a recent art show.

Many of the charter school's 214 K-8 students are members of minorities from the neighborhood, drawn by its academic rigor and focus on science and math. One of its eighth-graders won first place in the 2011 New Mexico Science and Engineering Fair. Last school year, ASE's first, included celebrations for Black History Month and Cinco de Mayo. It plans to add a high school and uses a science-oriented curriculum popular in Texas public schools.

ASE parents seem pleased. Lewanna Ramsey, the mom of an eighth-grader and a special-needs sixth-grader at ASE, says she appreciates principal Ahmet Cetinkaya's open-door policy. "At a public school," she says, "you hardly ever see the principal or other staff. Here, I'm always in Mr. Cetinkaya's office."

But there's a bit more to the story. ASE is tied to sympathizers of Fethullah Gulen, a charismatic Turkish Muslim cleric now living in rural Pennsylvania. "Gulen," according to Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, "is probably the most subtle and capable Islamist now active." His millions of followers around the world promote his moderate brand of Islam partly through their businesses, cultural foundations, and media but primarily through schools and colleges—several hundred on five continents. Ask Cetinkaya about ASE's relationship to Gulen and he shifts in his chair and looks away. He and three of his teachers are from Turkey.

The schools have generated critical examination. A New York Times article in June detailed how the Harmony charters seem to favor local Turkish businessmen in awarding building contracts. While a large majority of Gulen charter staff and teachers are usually American, the administrators are usually Turkish. Every year the schools import several hundred male teachers from Turkey on H1-B temporary worker visas (684 in 2009, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer report), making them one of the largest users of such visas in the country.

Gulen administrators claim that quality science and math teachers are hard to find, but teachers unions and some parent groups find that hard to believe. The Oklahoman quoted Jenni White, president of Restore Oklahoma Public Education, asking in May, "If Oklahoma teachers are being laid off, why are we as Oklahoma taxpayers paying people from not even inside our country to come and teach our children?"

In the United States, Gulen-inspired charters are unlikely to promote Islam directly, according to an American businessman who lived in Turkey for 12 years. (WORLD agreed not to name him because he still owns a business and travels there.) Instead, he said, Gulenists try to make appreciative parents and students more accepting of Islam. The long-term approach, he said, is to "just practice Islam—we don't even have to preach—and people will realize the justice of our system and convert."

Many American evangelicals have become adept in criticizing and opposing militant Islam. The Gulen schools offer a new challenge: When Christians shirk from developing schools for low-income students, Gulen moves in.
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Greeks in Istanbul Cry Tears of Joy for the Return of their Properties

2011-09-01T11:44:00.000+03:00

Greeks in Istanbul welcomed Erdogan’s decision to return confiscated property to minorities, with tears of joy in their eyes.
As the representative of minority institutions under the General Directorate for Foundations and member of the Greek minority of Istanbul, Lakis Vingas, stated to Newsit; “yesterday was a historic day. Mr. Erdogan’s determination is one of a leader, as the issue was solved by a government decision and did not go through general assembly. This is evidence to Mr. Erdogan’s consistency in the progress of issues, faced by minorities here for many decades. We neither received a gift, nor compensation; we simply took back what belonged to us. This is justice and what we have been waiting for. We are now in the third phase of the return of minority properties and are very satisfied.
From now on, we should be mindful not only for the return of property, but also for the proper management and future course of the entire property. For us, for example, the return of the Galata School is very important. In addition, a large property we own in the Kantyli community, some Monasteries and other properties and of course cemeteries”.
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Ancient Antioch still home to many Christians

2011-08-31T09:51:00.002+03:00

High above the modern Turkish city of Antakya (Antioch) lays a relic of a former age. The Church of St Peter, now a pilgrimage site with a clear trail marking the way, was once a hidden centre of early Christian worship.

Composed of just a one-room cave about 13 meters wide, this sanctuary was crucial to developments in the history of Near Eastern Christianity, and is old enough to be mentioned in the Bible itself. It is here, according to legend, that followers of the newly emerging religion first called themselves Christians.

Though the church now serves as a heritage site and museum operated by the Turkish state, a hike down the mountain and into the city below leads visitors to a number of churches that have active congregations and daily services.

Official studies of the population of Turkey estimate the number of non-Muslim citizens to be less than .02%. In this corner of the country, however, the religious and ethnic diversity is much higher and, significantly, religious conflict nearly absent.

"There are no problems here," the head priest of the Catholic Church of Antioch, Domineco Bertogli, explains. "We live openly, we worship openly."

Indeed, the Italian priest's church is located next-door to a large mosque, and prominent plaques point the way.

Adalet, a young woman who works in the church with Bertogli, grew up in Antakya and takes pride in the city's level of tolerance and multiculturalism. She points to a poster hanging on a bulletin board that also displays church announcements and service hours.

Antakya is the largest city in the province of Hatay, and, like many urban areas, has developed as a centre of diversity. Farther away from the city, however, active Christian communities still prosper.

Near the Syrian border in the Altinozu district, two almost exclusively Christian villages remain, Sarilar and Tokacli. Villagers are nearly all Orthodox, with perhaps a handful of Catholic families.

Emin Mizikacioglu, an Orthodox Christian who runs a small market in Sarilar, expresses a mixture of tolerance and pride regarding religious differences.

"We live together like brothers, all of us," he says, then breaking off his sentence to tease the Muslim bus driver about how slowly the vehicle is moving.

A few minutes later, when Sarilar becomes visible over a ridge in the hilly landscape, he softens his voice and says with some excitement, "This is my village. You won't find a single Muslim family here. Not even one."

This dual perspective -- that Muslims and Christians and Jews are all siblings, but that a Christian village is still something to be treasured -- may be part of what enables these varied communities to maintain their own identities while engaging peacefully and productively with other groups.

Bertogli, perhaps drawing on his experiences while working elsewhere in Turkey, emphasises that while Antakya and its environs may truly be cities of peace, they are not necessarily indicative of the situation elsewhere.

"There isn't just one Turkey," he says. "There are many Turkeys."
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Searching for Lost Armenian Churches and Schools in Turkey

2011-08-28T21:04:00.001+03:00

Armenian Churches in Turkey before 1915

BY RAFFI BEDROSYAN
From The Armenian Weekly

On July 21, the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee overwhelmingly adopted the Berman-Cicilline Amendment based upon the Return of Churches resolution spearheaded by Representatives Ed Royce and Howard Berman, with a vote of 43 to 1, calling on Turkey to return stolen Armenian and other Christian churches, and to end the repression of its Christian minorities.

Where are these lost or stolen Armenian churches in Turkey? How many were there before 1915, the turning point in the Armenians' world, when they were uprooted and wiped out from their homeland of more than 3,000 years? How many churches are there now? Considering that every Armenian community invariably strove to build a school beside its church, how many Armenian schools were there in Turkey before 1915, and how many are there now? How many Armenian churches and schools are left standing now in Turkey is the easier part of the issue: There are only 34 churches and 18 schools left in Turkey today, mostly in Istanbul, with about less than 3,000 students in these schools. The challenging and frustrating issue is how many were there in the past.

Recent research pegs the number of Armenian churches in Turkey before 1915 at around 2,300. The number of schools before 1915 is estimated at nearly 700, with 82,000 students. These numbers are only for churches and schools under the jurisdiction of the Istanbul Armenian Patriarchate and the Apostolic Church, and therefore do not include the numerous churches and schools belonging to the Protestant and Catholic Armenian parishes. The American colleges and missionary schools, mostly attended by Armenian youth, are also excluded from these numbers. The number of Armenian students attending Turkish schools or small schools at homes in the villages are unknown and not included. Finally, these numbers do not include the churches and schools in Kars and Ardahan provinces, which were not part of Turkey until 1920, and were part of Russia since 1878.

The two maps show the wide distribution of Armenian churches and schools in Turkey before 1915. The two lists for the Armenian churches and schools are by no means complete, but should be regarded as a preliminary study that can serve as foundation for further research. The place names are based on the old Ottoman administrative system, instead of that of modern Turkey. They are ably assembled by Zakarya Mildanoglu, from various sources such as the Ottoman Armenian National Council Annual reports, Echmiadzin Journal, Vienna Mkhitarists, and studies by Teotig, Kevorkian, and Nishanyan.

Lost Churches
Adana: Center and villages, Yureghir, Ceyhan, Tarsus, Silifke, Yumurtalik, Dortyol, Iskenderun, 25 churches

Amasya: Vezirkopru, Mecitozu, Merzifon, Havza, Gumushacikoy, Ladik, 15 churches

Ankara: Center, Haymana, Sincan, 5 churches

Antakya: Center, Samandagh, 7 churches

Antep: Center, Nizip, Halfeti, 4 churches

Arapkir (Malatya): Arapkir and Kemaliye villages, 19 churches

Arganimadeni (Elazig): Erganis, Siverek, Bulanik, Kahta, 10 churches

Armash (Akmeshe): 2 churches

Artvin: Center and villages, 11 churches

Balikesir: Balikesir, Mustafakemalpasha, Biga, Bandirma, 6 churches

Bayburt: Bayburt center and villages, 34 churches

Beshiri (Diyarbakir): Beshiri and villages, 14 churches

Bilecik (Bursa): Golpazar, 4 churches

Bingol (Genc): Center and villages, 11 churches

Bitlis: Center and villages, 30 churches

Bitlis: Tatvan, Ahlat, Mutki, Hizan, 66 churches

Bolu: Duzce, Akyazi, 5 churches

Bursa: Center, Orhangazi, 11 churches

Charsancak ( Tunceli): Mazgirt, pertek, Pulumur, Hozat, and villages, 93 churches

Chemishgezek (Tunceli): 20 churches

Chungush (Diyarbakir): Chungush center and villages, 2 churches

Dersim: Hozat, Pertek, 28 churches

Divrigi (Sivas): Center and villages, 25 churches

Diyadin (Erzurum): Diyadin and villages, 4 churches

Diyarbakir: Center and villages, 11 churches

Edirne: Center and villages, 4 churches

Egin (Erzincan): Kemaliye, Ilic, and villages, 17 churches

Egin: 3 churches

Eleshkirt (Erzurum): Eleshkirt and villages, 6 churches

Ergani: Ergani and villages, 11 churches

Erzincan: Erzincan center and villages, 52 churches

Erzurum: Center, Aziziye, Yakutiye, Ashkale, Narman, Ispir, Oltu, Shenkaya, Horasan, Pazaryolu, and villages, 65 churches ...

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CBS: Turkey to return confiscated property

2011-08-28T20:56:00.001+03:00

(AP) ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey's government is returning hundreds of properties confiscated from the country's Christian and Jewish minorities over the past 75 years in a gesture to religious groups who complain of discrimination that is also likely to thwart possible court rulings against the country.

A government decree published Saturday returns assets that once belonged to Greek, Armenian or Jewish trusts and makes provisions for the government to pay compensation for any confiscated property that has since been sold on.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was scheduled to announce the decision formally later Sunday when he hosts religious leaders and the heads of about 160 minority trusts, at a fast-breaking dinner for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, officials said.

The properties include former hospital, orphanage or school buildings and cemeteries. Their return is a key European Union demand and a series of court cases has also been filed against primarily Muslim Turkey at the European Court of Human Rights. Last year, the court ordered Turkey to return an orphanage to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. ...

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WikiLeaks: Israeli envoy to Turkey says Erdogan ‘hates us religiously’

2011-08-26T11:15:00.001+03:00

An Israeli ambassador described Turkey’s prime minister as a “fundamentalist” who hates the Jewish state on religious grounds, according a U.S. diplomatic cable recently released.

The confidential October 2009 cable cites the musings of Gabby Levy, Israel’s ambassador to Turkey, on why Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had turned on Turkey’s longtime ally.

“Levy dismissed political calculation as a motivator for Erdogan’s hostility, arguing the prime minister’s party had not gained a single point in the polls from his bashing of Israel,” says the cable, which was sent by the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, and released by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

“Instead, Levy attributed Erdogan’s harshness to deep-seated emotion: ‘He’s a fundamentalist. He hates us religiously’ and his hatred is spreading,” according to the cable.
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Changes in school religious education fail to resolve fundamental problems

2011-08-26T11:03:00.002+03:00

Children across Turkey are preparing to return to school on 19 September. For the first time, the official textbooks for use in all but the few ethnic minority schools for non-Muslims will include not only teaching of Sunni Islam, but also on Alevi and Caferi traditions, both widely shared movements within Islam in Turkey. The Education Ministry's General Directorate of Religious Education confirmed that the textbooks for the compulsory Religious Culture and Knowledge of Ethics (RCKE) lessons have been amended to include additions agreed with representatives of these two communities, though the textbooks are not yet publicly available to verify this.

Religious Culture and Knowledge of Ethics classes, for between one and two hours a week, are compulsory in almost all primary and secondary schools. Lessons have up till now been heavily based on the Sunni branch of Islam, and the textbooks are prepared and published by the Education Ministry.

RCKE classes have not always been compulsory in Turkey. Because the military leadership of 1980 saw the value of a certain form of "restrained religion" as a unifying factor for the nation and as a preventative tool against what it considered marginal movements, a provision was inserted into Article 24 of the Turkish Constitution making RCKE classes compulsory in primary and secondary education. The same provision goes on to say that "education and instruction in religion and ethics shall be conducted under state supervision and control", explicitly demonstrating the state's strong interest in imposing its control.

The Chair of the Association of Protestant Churches, Zekai Tanyar, thinks it is unrealistic to expect that there will be no religion classes in Turkey. He views the current practice as the teaching of a certain denomination within Islam, and hence students should have the possibility of exemption. The important thing, as he sees it, is the consequence of the RCKE lessons: because of the narrow focus of the content, students are raised with a narrow view of religion and tend to see members of other religions or traditions as "the other".
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Ricciardone Revises Response to Senate Inquiry on Number of Churches in Turkey

2011-08-26T11:00:00.000+03:00

US Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone, responding to a wave of grassroots outrage and growing Congressional concern, backed away from his most obvious and offensive misrepresentations about Turkey’s destruction of Christian churches, but sparked renewed controversy by artificially inflating the number of currently operating Christian houses of worship, and again using strained euphemisms to help Ankara escape responsibility for its crimes, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

Following broad-based concerns expressed by Armenian-American community and religious leaders, Ricciardone amended his earlier response to Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Robert Menendez (D-NJ), in which he had argued, without any basis in fact, that a majority of Christian churches operating in the territory of present-day Turkey prior to 1915 were still functioning today.

In a correction obtained by the ANCA on August 22, Ricciardone took the “opportunity to clarify the record,” suggesting that of the 2,000 churches there before 1915, they are not all still functioning. He said, “The corrected text should read as follows: Most of the Christian churches functioning prior to 1915 are no longer operating as churches. Christian community contacts in Turkey report that a total of 200-250 churches that date to 1915 and before offer Christian worship services at least once a year. Many churches do not offer services every week due to insufficient clergy or local Christian populations. Some churches of significance operate as museums, others have been converted into mosques or put to other uses. Still others have fallen into disrepair or may have been totally destroyed.”
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Safeguarding Christian Heritage in Modern Day Turkey

2011-08-19T14:14:00.001+03:00

Although Turkey is a secular state, there have been continued reports of discrimination and abuse based on religious belief or practice, as well as routine confiscation of Christian properties through discriminatory laws. The 2007 International Religious Freedom Report stated that religious minorities in Turkey are denied positions in governmental institutions because of their religious beliefs. In fact, Turkey has been on the International Religious Freedom “Watch List” for three consecutive years because of discrimination and abuse based on religion.

As proof of its religious tolerance, the Turkish government brags that it has restored the historic Church of the Holy Cross on Akhtamar Island. However, instead of returning the holy site to the Armenian community and allowing religious services, the church was turned into a secular museum where services can only be held once a year, and only by permission of the Turkish Government. In fact, just last year, a group of children who wished to offer a prayer at Holy Cross were forced out by Turkish police. Today, this historic church, which was once the seat of an Armenian Catholicosate from the 12th to 19th centuries, and what is often depicted as a symbol of Armenian Christianity in Western Armenia, is reduced to a mere tourist attraction.
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Swimsuits, Gays, and Christians: Survey Sheds Light on Values, Trends in Turkey

2011-08-18T16:24:00.001+03:00

A recent survey in Turkey highlighted a decrease in people’s confidence in the Turkish Armed Forces, an increased trust in the government, and revealed intolerance towards ethnic, sexual, and other minorities.

Only 15 percent of respondents agreed that “there is great regard and respect towards human rights in our country,” while 16 percent believed that there is no respect for human rights in Turkey.

However, the more discussed revelation was the low level of tolerance Turks have towards certain groups and people. Topping the list of those deemed intolerable were gays and lesbians (with 84 percent of respondents saying they do not desire a gay or lesbian neighbor), followed by individuals infected with AIDS (74 percent), couples living together out of wedlock (68 percent), atheists (64 percent), proponents of Sharia (54 percent), Christians (48 percent), followers of other faiths (39 percent), immigrants and foreign workers (39 percent), women who wear shorts (26 percent), those who do not fast (20 percent), and those voting for a competing political party (17 percent).

The percentage of interviewees who said religion is important to them was around 92 percent, a reality that has not changed in 15 years. Eighty-one percent considered themselves devout; 87 percent said they fast; 61 percent thought it a sin for women to wear bathing suits; 79 percent believed theirs is the one true religion; and 85 percent said they believe in creationism, not evolution.

The survey also revealed that the level of trust Turks have towards others—including family and friends— was low. Only 15 percent said they trusted others, while 61 percent said they do not trust people from other nationalities.

The survey underscored significant gender issues in Turkey: 30 percent of those surveyed said some women deserved to be beaten by their husbands—and 27 percent of women agreed—which is a stark increase from 19 percent in 1996. The survey also showed that men were deemed better politicians than women (71 percent agreed), that males were fit to head the family unit (74 percent), women ought to obey their husbands (62 percent), and men can have more than one wife (23 percent).
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Ani looks for inclusion on World Heritage List

2011-08-17T20:29:00.001+03:00

The spectacular ruins of Ani, the capital of an ancient Armenian kingdom and important city on the Silk Road, could soon be included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, according to local authorities.
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Turkey: Christian Monastery Fights for Muslim Tenants

2011-08-17T19:11:00.001+03:00

In 1972, Yorgo Güller, a Greek Christian from Istanbul, visited leafy Burgazada, one of the Princes’ Islands just off the city’s coast, looking for love. Almost forty years later, he is still there tending to a neglected, 18th century Greek monastery.

Summer homes still line the vegetable garden of Aya Yorgi Garibi, which some believe translates as “Saint George the Destitute.” But the only year-round tenants are Güller, his Muslim wife, and 48 families of Alevi Shi’a Muslims, Turkey’s largest religious minority.

The tolerance at Yorgi Garibi recalls the days of cosmopolitan Constantinople, when Greeks numbered in the hundreds of thousands. But a land dispute dating to the expulsions of Greeks in the 20th century threatens that easiness. In an ironic twist, the Turkish government is now telling the low-income Muslim families to leave.

Fast forward to a more peaceful time. Güller is Aya Yorgi’s caretaker. Inspired by churches he had seen on a boat trip around the Greek islands, Güller gave the monastery’s faded green and yellow façade a new coat of paint. “Blue like the sky and white like innocence,” he said of the choice. “An Armenian friend of mine donated the paint. And then a Turkish friend and me painted the walls ourselves, tying ladders on top of each other because we didn’t have the money or the authorization for scaffolding.”

Greek families on the island asked him not to paint the church blue and white, the colors of the Greek flag, afraid Turkish authorities might see it as a provocation. To the neighbors’ surprise, the authorities were delighted. The local mayor voiced his approval, as did the commander of the nearby naval officers’ high school.

Because the Patriarchate does not send a priest to Aya Yorgi, Güller has installed loudspeakers around the chapel. Every Sunday morning at 6 a.m., he tunes in to a religious radio station in Greece to listen to a service. “The liturgies read in Istanbul churches are not as beautiful as I remember them being as a child,” Güller said. “Many of the priests just don’t care anymore because the congregations are so small now.”

Poignantly, today it is not the Greeks facing expulsion from this multicultural stronghold, but the Alevi families. A priest in the 1970s invited the Alevis – originally migrant workers – to stay as thanks for helping him take care of the facilities. Though the acres they tend outside Aya Yorgi’s walls have belonged to monastery since 1884, when a wealthy Greek family donated them, disputed regulations dictate that land Greeks left behind must be ceded to local authorities. A Turkish foundation now lays claims to the property.

Until the 2000s, when real estate prices boomed on the Princes’ Islands, no one had sought ownership. But in 2010, a court awarded the property to the foundation.

Though Aya Yorgi itself is not threatened, Güller says its way of life is and vows to fight for the monastery’s Muslim friends.

“Aya Yorgi Garibi has always been a shelter for the destitute,” Güller, who has led an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights over the evictions, enthused. “This is blatant injustice. … And with God’s help, everybody will be able to stay.”
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Elif Shafak: The politics of fiction | Video on TED.com

2011-08-17T12:35:00.000+03:00

Elif Shafak: The politics of fiction | Video on TED.com

Hundreds of Orthodox pilgrims gather for second service at Sümela Monastery

2011-08-15T20:41:00.001+03:00

Nearly 1,000 Orthodox Christians gathered for a historic service at Sümela Monastery in the Black Sea coastal province of Trabzon early Monday, marking the second religious ceremony held at the monastery in the history of the Turkish Republic.

The Divine Liturgy, held on the occasion of the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos according to the Orthodox liturgical calendar (also known as the Assumption of Mary), was officiated by İstanbul-based Fener Greek Patriarch Bartholomew I. Pilgrims from Greece, Russia, Georgia and other countries traveled to the monastery, which currently serves as a museum. Around 500 pilgrims were admitted to the monastery during the service, and the remaining participants watched the event from large screens set up outside Sümela.

Beginning the homily by saying “Our Muslim brothers,” Bartholomew thanked the Turkish government, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for allowing a second service at Sümela. Stating that Mary has a special place for both Muslims and Christians, he recalled a Quran verse which says: “And (remember) when the angels said: ‘O Maryam (Mary)! Verily, Allah has chosen you, purified you (from polytheism and disbelief), and chosen you above the women of the ‘Alamin' (mankind and jinns) (of her lifetime),” the patriarch called for peace and brotherhood in Turkey and in the world during his speech.

“The peace that we long for is vital, in particular during these days. We cannot rid ourselves of the burden of the tragic events in Norway yet. There is ongoing bloodshed in neighboring countries. Mothers are crying in our country. … Let's make a call from the high Sümela Mountain, from the presence of the feet of the Virgin Mary -- who is above all women -- to all Christians and Muslims for us, for humanity and for our future. This call can be a single word: peace, peace, peace. Mutual respect and love should be our only prayer,” the patriarch said.

Bartholomew also wished Muslim a happy Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr. “May God accept your fasts,” he added.
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The Trouble with Turkey

2011-08-12T19:31:00.001+03:00

Thomas Bruning, the general secretrary of the Netherlands Union of Journalists (NVJ), is rather pessimististic about press freedom in Turkey. In March alone, eight journalists were arrested in Turkey. Two prominent investigative journalists, namely Ahmed Sik and Nedim Sener, were among them. Some 60 Turkish journalists are in prison now, just because of what they wrote or on fake charges. "In view of the persecution and intimidation of journalists and the lack of transparency questions can be raised about the state of Turkish democracy," Bruning wrote in April (2011). "In a country that calls itself democratic and wants to join the European Union, free reporting is essential. Press freedom is democracy's greatest good."

Since Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan came to power in 2002 Turkey gradually moved away from its traditional secularism. Turkey's new rulers belong to the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which initially presented itself as a moderate and pro-Western Muslim party – even though it was unprecedented for prime minister of Turkey to have a veiled wife. Emine Erdogan is a woman who proudly wears the Islamic headscarf calling on other women to follow her example. The AKP no longer is as moderate as it initially claimed to be. It was under Erdogan that Turkey opened a new page with Iran and its Muslim fundamentalist dictators who deny the Holocaust. Nationals from neighboring Muslim countries (notably Iran, Iraq and Syria) no longer need a visa to enter Turkey. Erdogan's new enemy now is Israel, pro-Iranian Hamas and Hezbollah, though, are seen as new allies. As the "Jerusalem Post" noted recently, "Erdogan's anti-Israel rhetoric cannot be seen in isolation from his oppressive policies at home and his pursuit of Islamist allies."

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The Annihilation of Civilizations

2011-08-11T10:06:00.002+03:00

By the time Mohammed died in 632 AD, Islam had used persuasion and jihad to subjugate Arabia. The annihilation of native Arabic culture is Sunna, the perfect example for all times and all Muslims. Said another way, the political theory of Islam is annihilation of Kafir civilization. How well did this political theory work out in history? Is this theory of annihilation at work today?

We have records of Mohammed’s last jihad against the Christians north of Arabia. After he died, Umar, the second caliph, took Mohammed’s jihad against the Christians and developed it into a war that conquered half of the Christian world. But this conquest was only the beginning of the political transformation. Sharia law was put into place and the Christian Kafirs became dhimmis. But Umar was not able to conquer Anatolia, the site known today as Turkey. For centuries, Islam attacked Anatolia and finally took Constantinople, now known as Istanbul, Turkey.

Take a look at the demographic history of the annihilation of the Greek Christian civilization:

This demographic growth chart of Islam has many things to teach us. The first is that the process of annihilation took centuries. Some people think that when Islam invaded, the Kafirs (non-Muslims) had the choice of conversion or death. No, absolutely not. Sharia law was put into place and the Christian dhimmis continued to have their “protected” status as People of the Book who lived under the Sharia law. The dhimmi paid heavy taxes, could not testify in court, hold a position of authority over Muslims and was humiliated by social rules. A dhimmi had to step aside for the Muslim, offer him his seat, could not carry a weapon and defer to a Muslim in every way. In all matters of society the dhimmi had to yield to the Muslim. Over the centuries, the degradation, lack of rights and the dhimmi tax caused the Christian to convert. It is the Sharia that destroys the dhimmis.

Notice where the curve is headed—100% Islam, just like Arabia. Today, Turkey is 99.7% Muslim. The Christian and Greek civilization of Anatolia is gone. It is annihilated.

What is tragic is that it seems that no one knows or cares. The Fethullah Gülen Movement (Turkish Muslim Brotherhood) of today pays for Christian ministers to go to Turkey and see an Islamic tolerant country where Christians live in beautiful harmony with Islam. And the ministers come back talking about what a wonderful society Turkey is and how well Christians are treated. After all, 0.3% of the Christians are still there in wonderful Turkey.

Today we see another approach to dealing with the Islam of annihilation. We ignore the history of annihilation and say that all we need to do is love Muslims and we will live in harmony, a wonderful multicultural civilization. A history of 1400 years without a single exception to the rule of annihilation and we will repeal it with a smile and a hug. All you need is love; love is all you need; all you need is love; love is all you need. Repeat that again and again, it will make a doctrine and history of annihilation go away. Actually, the way it works is that the history is never known. It is a cliché to say that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. It is a cliché but it is true. We have our foot on the path to annihilation today because we refuse to know history.

What is the lesson? Islam, peaceful Islam, is about destruction of all Kafir civilization. Only if the Kafirs realize the goal of Islam is annihilation of their culture, can the destruction be stopped. Islam is at war with Kafirs, and Kafirs are trying to “nice” their way out of destruction. Islam is at war, we are at nice. Mohammed has a dream that is coming true while we sleep.
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A contrast to the previous article, this would list the reason as tolerance is because the majority is winning.

Turkey keeps religious restrictions, hostilities in check

2011-08-11T10:01:00.002+03:00

Turkey is one of the few countries where government-imposed religious restrictions and social hostilities involving religion have declined since mid-2008, while a striking 32 percent of the rest the world population faced an increase in both areas, according to the recently announced results of a three-year study, “Rising Restrictions on Religion,” conducted by the Washington-based Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The findings of the study, which focused on religious restrictions in 198 countries over a three-year period, showed that government restrictions and social hostilities with regards to people's religious beliefs have increased in many countries, decreasing substantially in only a few, amounting to a mere 1 percent of the global population. The study listed Turkey among the countries with “high level” government restrictions and social hostilities, ranking 19th in government restrictions and 24th in social hostilities stemming from religion, at the same time revealing that the country has nevertheless improved its performance in both areas by a small margin.
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In my opinion, this has to do more with the level of government control and the serious level at which crime is prosecuted than any other factor.

1,700-year-old church unearthed in Turkey's Mugla

2011-08-10T09:14:00.000+03:00

A 1,700-year-old church has been unearthed in Stratonikeia Ancient City in Yatagan town of Aegean province of Mugla.
Associate Prof. Bilal Sogut, head of Stratonikeia Ancient City excavation team, said Tuesday that significant progress was recorded in archaeologic excavations, researches, preservation and restoration works during the excavations that had been carried out since 2008.
"The church is an important one in the region. Some parts of the church were destroyed. We will restore the damaged parts and open it to public visit," he said.

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The Turkish model: A hard act to follow

2011-08-06T19:57:00.002+03:00

PALE, bespectacled and polite, Bekir Berat Ozipek, a young professor at Istanbul’s Commerce University, is no street-fighter. But he was excited by the heady atmosphere he experienced on a recent trip to Egypt. He and two fellow Turkish scholars went to a conference at the University of Cairo where their ideas on civil-military relations were keenly gobbled up.

Then late one night, on the eve of a big protest, they went to Tahrir Square, the heart of Egypt’s uprising. They loved what they found: young people directing traffic, exuberant songs and slogans, a joker imitating ex-President Hosni Mubarak. Then they dived into a restaurant, where their chat about Egypt’s political system was joined by youngsters at the next table, as well as the waiter. Mr Ozipek thought he was living in the era of Voltaire.

A few days earlier another Turkish-Arab encounter took place. Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, was winding up a visit to rebel-controlled Libya when he decided, to his minders’ alarm, to go to the central square of Benghazi, which like its Cairene counterpart is called Tahrir, or Liberation. As the crowd chanted “Erdogan, Turkey, Muslim”, he brought greetings from his prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and told them: “We have a common future and a history.”

From North Africa to the Gulf, the region seems to be going through a Turkish moment. In years past Turkey’s spotty democracy was often cited to prove a negative: the Turkish case (along with Indonesia’s and Malaysia’s, also with reservations) showed that Islam did not pose an insuperable barrier to multiparty democracy. But nothing much flowed from that observation—until the Arab spring. Turkey is now being studied by Arabs as a unique phenomenon: a movement of moderate Islamists, the Justice and Development (AK) party, has overseen an economic boom, boosted the country’s standing and shown that the coming to power of pious people need not mean a dramatic rupture in ties with the West.

Whatever the flaws of the Turkish experiment, it is clearly true that Turkey under the AK party presents a more benign picture than many other versions—real and hypothetical—of Islamist rule. The country has gained influence in the Middle East by keeping cordial ties with Iran and standing up for the Palestinians. But there is no suggestion that it will leave NATO or cut diplomatic links, however strained, with Israel. Life has been made easier for pious Muslims in ways that secular Turks dislike; but so far, at least, Turkey is a long way from any Iranian-style enforcement of female dress, let alone a clerical class that has the final say in all big decisions.
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Turkey gives go-ahead for second service at Sümela Monastery

2011-08-05T13:47:00.001+03:00

The Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism has approved a request by the İstanbul-based Fener Greek Patriarchate for a second service at the Sümela Monastery in the Black Sea coastal province of Trabzon in August, the Doğan news agency reported on Friday.

The ministry reportedly told the patriarchate that a religious service can be held at Sümela in the second half of August and that the date and time would be determined by the Trabzon Governor's Office.

The monastery was abandoned after the foundation of the Turkish Republic and the subsequent population exchange between Turks and Greeks. It has since become a major tourist destination along Turkey's Black Sea coast.

The Turkish government last year allowed for an annual church service to be held at the monastery in a gradual loosening of restrictions on religious expression. The government accepted the patriarchate's request to hold last year's celebration of the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos on Aug. 15 at Sümela Monastery. The service at the monastery was officiated by İstanbul-based Fener Greek Patriarch Bartholomew. Pilgrims from Greece, Russia, Georgia and other countries traveled to the monastery, which currently serves as a museum.

Around 500 pilgrims were admitted to the monastery during the service, and the remaining participants watched the event on large screens set up outside Sümela. After the completion of the service, Bartholomew offered his thanks to the Ministry of Culture for its efforts to open the monastery for an annual service. He said the opening of the doors of the monastery for the religious ceremony was an act of courtesy on the part of the Turkish government.

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Apostle St Philip's tomb found in Turkey

2011-07-27T20:48:00.002+03:00

The tomb of Saint Philip, one of the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ, has been discovered in Turkey, the Anatolia news agency reported Wednesday.

The discovery was made in Hierapolis at the ancient excavation site in the southwestern province of Denizli, said Francesco D'Andria, the head of the excavation team.

People believed the tomb of Saint Philip was in the "hill of the dead" in Hierapolis, but the team found a new church ruins near the hill where the tomb actually lies.

"The discovery of the tomb of St Philip, who is a very important figure in Christianity, will make a tremendous impression in the world," D'Andria said.

Archaeologists had been working for years to look for the tomb of the Biblical figure.

Hierapolis is an ancient city and also a Unesco World Heritage Site. The city, famous for its historical hot springs, comprises a mixture of Pagan, Roman, Jewish and early Christian influences.

Saint Philip is believed to have died in Hierapolis around 80 A.D.

Legend says Saint Philip was crucified upside-down or martyred by beheading.

After his death, an octagonal tomb named "The Martryium" was erected for him.

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Turkey Convicts Murderer Of Turkish Armenian Journalist

2011-07-27T13:55:00.001+03:00

A court in Istanbul has sentenced the main suspect in the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink to 22 years imprisonment.

Dink, the editor of a bilingual newspaper, was shot dead four years ago near his office in the city.

He had angered nationalists with articles referring to a Turkish ‘genocide’ of predominantly Christian Armenians in 1915. The Turkish government has denied any genocide took place, claiming the killings occurred amid widespread unrest.

Suspect Ogun Samast was 17 and unemployed at the time of Dink’s assassination.

Another court is hearing the cases against two other main suspects in the conspiracy and a handful of others accused of being linked to the plot, trial observers said.

Eyten Mahcupyan, who became editor of Agos, praised the court for being 'courageous enough to go with the evidence, and not go down an ideological path.

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After years of “red tape,” Christians in Turkey finally open House Church

2011-07-27T13:51:00.001+03:00

Protestants in the eastern Turkish province of Van have finally succeeded in opening a house church after seven years of struggling with local bureaucracies, yet they are still concerned by the hostile rhetoric coming from their local officials.

“They see us as persons who deceive people and who have a secret agenda,” elder Vahit Yıldız told Hurriyet Daily News. “It is not just the concept of a mission that causes prejudice, but also the concepts of ‘house prayer’ and ‘house church.’ The quintessential reason behind the fear is … the rhetoric employed by some of the (Turkish) leaders, which deeply saddens us, besides the prejudices formed by the public.”

Shortly after the church was opened, Mustafa Bilici — a Van deputy from the ruling Justice and Development Party — lamented the occaision with Islamic-inspired anti-Semetic rhetoric.

“It is great heedlessness to open new churches in Muslim societies that are acting as stooges for Zionist activities,” he said.

Yıldız said his congregation, composed of Turks, Azeris, Afghans, Kurds, Iranians and others, only want to worship freely.

“Our doors are open to anyone who wants to get to know us,” he said.

The Protestant group had met in a private home for seven years while it appealed to local governments to obtain a license to be recognized as an official place of worship.

“Due to a lack of sufficient church buildings and (the authorities’ refusal) to grant a Religious Designation License, there are over 100 house groups and rented places of worship all across Turkey,” said Yıldız.

Yıldız pointed out that Christian clerics have been attacked and threatened in eastern Turkey, notably the murder of Andrea Santoro — a priest who was killed in Trabzon — as well as the Zirve Publishing House murders in Malatya.

“It is striking that (these) incidents have taken place in eastern provinces,” said Yildiz. “For that reason, we are being very careful … the way is being paved for similar attacks as long as the true perpetrators remain unexposed and judiciary penalties are not applied; no one will have the courage to commit such heinous attacks if the judiciary mechanism functions as it is supposed to.”

Yıldız said that unless these mechanisms are in place, Christians here will continue meeting in house churches due to continued threats and attacks.

“We are waging a great struggle in this vein. Our true purpose in this struggle is to adopt an open and transparent attitude toward both local governments, as well as toward our state.”

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US panel presses Turkey on religious rights

2011-07-21T10:30:00.001+03:00

A US congressional committee on Wednesday urged Turkey to ensure religious freedom and return church properties to their "rightful owners" in a vote opposed by the Ankara government.

After a spirited debate, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a text that says Turkey should "end all forms of religious discrimination" and "return to their rightful owners" all churches and other Christian historic sites.

"Religious minorities are under grave threat in today's Turkey," said Representative Ed Royce, a Republican from California.

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Bigotry in Turkey and in Europe

2011-07-14T10:02:00.002+03:00

Say you are Jewish or Sikh or Hindu or a Unitarian in Turkey. Can you be a full-fledged Turkish citizen?

Yes, in theory but not in practice. You’d have to subsume your religious, ethnic and other identities into being just “Turkish.”

This is not another variation of the old Quebec separatist refrain about who was a true Quebecer — only the pure laine. This goes to the core of how, even whether, Turkey can move beyond multi-party elections and evolve into a liberal democracy in which all citizens are truly equal.

Turkey is an important emerging power, the only Muslim member of NATO, a model for many in the Arab Awakening, and a bridge between the West and the East.

Its $1 trillion market-driven economy is booming, recording a growth rate second only to China’s. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has also succeeded in asserting civilian control over the shadowy “deep state,” the unelected trinity of army, judiciary and bureaucracy that for decades dominated elected governments, even toppling them.

Turkey’s next challenge is to end a century of discrimination against minorities, the largest being the separatist Kurds, nearly a fifth in a population of 75 million.

That would mean confronting the authoritarian political and social legacy of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish republic in 1923. That was a time of great chaos amid the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The 1915-16 genocide of Armenians had eliminated up to a million people. Post-World War I, the Allies plotted to divide the Ottoman Turkish heartland — a plan Ataturk thwarted. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne sanctioned the deportation of 270,000 Christians to Greece and the acceptance of 130,000 Muslims from there.

The territorial integrity of the new republic was paramount. Non-Muslims — Armenians, Greek-Orthodox, Christian Arabs, Jews, etc. — were deemed fifth columnists. The new “Turk” was going to be a Turkish-speaking Muslim — a Sunni, at that, who subscribed to Hanafi theology (one of five schools of Islamic jurisprudence).

That formulation also excluded the Alevis (an offshoot of Shiite Islam), the Kurds (who were both Sunni and Alevis) and the Laz (an ancient people related to Georgians and living on the Black Sea).

All would be “Turkified.”

This was ironic. The new secular order that had abolished the sultanate and the caliphate, switched the day of rest from Friday to Sunday, banned the hijab, and changed the Turkish script from Arabic to Latin, was resorting to a religious identity to define citizenship.

Yet the new state also wanted to control Islam. It ordered the new Sunni Muslim citizen to subscribe to laiklik, secularism. But unlike the French laicite, which separated state and religion, the Turkish model empowered the state to dictate all religious observances, including how to pray and dress.

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Free circumcision makes good politics in Turkey

2011-07-13T14:29:00.000+03:00

As an exercise in good governance, the mass circumcision ceremony for some 100 boys from disadvantaged families in an old Istanbul square ticks a lot of boxes for Turkey's ruling AK Party and its voters.

"Circumcision is an important tradition in Islam," Mayor Ibrahim Kavuncu told Reuters with pride as he watched the boys and their families assemble in a square fronting Eyup Sultan Mosque to perform religious rites.

Draped in blue cloaks over cream satin shirts and wearing caps, the boys each carry a small staff. Shepherded into a circle around a janissary band, they practice waving the staves in time to the music.

A day later they will go to a private hospital for a fully paid circumcision.

In AK-controlled municipalities like Eyup, a gritty and pious neighborhood on the southern side of the Golden Horn inlet, connecting with people means giving them what they want.

For any good Muslim family that would include having their boys circumcised, observing religious rites and providing a small feast for relatives and neighbors.

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Agents among Turkey's Christians not surprising as new informant discovered

2011-07-09T10:12:00.001+03:00

Discovering agents among the small Christian community of Turkey is not a surprise, according to observers as there has been a report revealing yet another informant who was present within the Christian population of the southern province of Mersin.

A long-time Christian, Hakan Çevikoğlu, who died in a traffic accident in Spain last year, turned out to be a secret agent among the Christians of Mersin where they only number around 20. This revelation came out in the testimony of İ.Ç., known as Deniz Uygar who used to be a bishop and an informant. He is now a secret witness in the ongoing Malatya murder case of 2007 in which three people who sold Christian literature were brutally killed.

İ.Ç. said in his testimony in March this year that Çevikoğlu was a secret agent of the intelligence service working for noncommissioned officer Abdullah Atılgan, former chief of the unit of the extreme right actions in relation to the Mersin Gendarmerie Intelligence, according to a report in the Radikal daily on Friday. When the court asked Atılgan about this claim, he said that Çevikoğlu was introduced to him by İ.Ç. and that Atılgan used Çevikoğlu as a registered informant. But he said that he severed his relations with Çevikoğlu because he heard that Çevikoğlu was sharing some of the information that he had with others.

Soner Tufan, the press and public relations officer for the Association of Protestant Churches based in the Aegean province of İzmir, told Today's Zaman that revelations about Çevikoğlu are unexpected, but the developments are not surprising at all.

“Çevikoğlu and his family have been devout Christians for a long time. His daughter had a Christian marriage. His wife is a Christian, and the family attends church. Even Çevikoğlu's family was unaware of his activities,” Tufan said.

However, he added that the development is not surprising.

“There have been so many revelations about informants among Christians; we don't know whom to trust anymore. Our feeling is that if there are so many agents in such a small community like the one in Mersin, then how many more are there?” he asked in reference to three other agents previously discovered among Mersin's Christians.

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Can a new Constitution solve religious freedom problems?

2011-06-27T18:27:00.000+03:00

Following the AKP's general election victory, political attention in Turkey has turned to the long-awaited new Constitution, Forum 18 News Service notes. It appears that a consensus may exist among Turkey's liberals, leading civil society organisations, religious minorities, legal academics, and the main opposition party, the CHP, that the new Constitution should uphold the right to freedom of religion or belief. Many would not object to this as an ideal, but attention to the detail of the proposals is essential. The AKP's past record would suggest that any predictions of its response should be cautious. Indeed, it is unclear what the AKP itself would propose. It is vital that the new Constitution enshrines full guarantees of freedom of religion or belief for all, fully in line with Turkey's international human rights obligations. But on its own - without good laws, regulations and state actions - a Constitution can only have a limited impact in generating practical change in the daily lives of people belonging to minority religious and belief communities.

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Answered Prayers

2011-06-27T18:24:00.001+03:00

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan is redrawing the Constitution. Why the devout Muslim is good for the Christians.

As a teenager growing up in a tough Istanbul neighborhood, Recep Tayyip Erdogan studied to be an Islamic cleric. His dream, though, was to become a professional player on the local Kasimpasa football team. In the end, neither ambition worked out: he became Turkey’s prime minister instead. Now, after nine years in power, Erdogan has just pulled off his third—and biggest—general-election win on an ambitious program that includes a radical redrawing of Turkey’s Constitution. The theology student from Kasimpasa now wants to remake the hard-wiring of the Turkish state by scrapping restrictions on religious freedom; creating a powerful French-style presidency (presumably with himself as the first incumbent); and by making the country’s judges, universities, and Army more accountable to Parliament: a to-do list that rings loud alarm bells for many Turks—and friends of Turkey. The country’s old secular elite fears that allowing Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AK Party a say in the appointment of judges, school principals, and university rectors will make the country more Muslim and more conservative. Pundits and politicians in America and Israel aren’t thrilled with the idea of giving Erdogan more power—especially after he railed about a Jewish press conspiracy against him during the campaign. And Turkey’s chattering classes are increasingly concerned about Erdogan’s intolerance of criticism. One hostile newspaper magnate has been landed with crippling tax bills, while more than 60 Turkish journalists languish in jail—more than in China.
Unexpectedly, though, Turkey’s tiny but ancient Christian community has welcomed the AK Party’s most recent landslide. Erdogan may be a deeply devout Muslim, and his party dominated by nondrinking, headscarf-wearing Sunni Muslims. But despite his Islamic grassroots, Erdogan advocates a historic softening of Turkey’s 80-year-old anti-Christian rules. Most significantly, he has helped save the 1,700-year old patriarchate of Constantinople. The current Patriarch Bartholomew, as senior bishop of the Orthodox Church, is spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox faithful around the world. But a 1923 Turkish law insists that the patriarch and all members of the Synod—the Orthodox equivalent of the Catholic College of Cardinals—be Turkish citizens drawn from Turkey’s tiny ethnic-Greek community, now just 2,500 strong. With Bartholomew already 71, and most of the Synod not much younger, it looked as though the end of the institution was nigh. But by granting Turkish citizenship to a new crop of younger Orthodox bishops from around the world, Erdogan likely saved the institution by ensuring Bartholomew’s succession.

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Former general testifies at court on missionaries’ murder

2011-06-25T22:53:00.000+03:00

Retired Gen. Hurşit Tolon was released after testifying Friday morning at Beşiktaş Courthouse in Istanbul regarding an ongoing investigation into the Zirve Publishing House massacres during which three Christians were killed.

Tolon gave his testimony to prosecutor Cihan Kansız, who is in charge of the investigation of the alleged Ergenekon coup-plot case, according to Doğan news agency, or DHA.

Tolon is one of the suspects being tried without arrest in the Ergenekon trials.

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Syriac Christian elected in Turkey after 50 years

2011-06-18T10:58:00.001+03:00

A Syriac Christian has been elected to Turkey's new parliament, not seen in the overwhelmingly Muslim country for 50 years, it was reported Monday.

Erol Dora, 47, is a member of the orthodox Syriac Church and part of a small community also known as Assyrians based in Mardin in southern Turkey.

Elected as an independent, Dora was nevertheless backed by the main pro-Kurd group the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in Sunday's vote.

The sole Christian member of parliament, dominated once again by the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), has committed himself to being a voice for the country's Christians.

Read more:

Christian woman’s burial story full of irony, questions

2011-06-13T07:00:00.002+03:00

Zeynep Tufan was 75 years old when she died of cancer this month. Even though her identification card from the Republic of Turkey had a box which indicated that she was an adherent of the religion of Islam, she wasn’t.

Although she was born to Muslim parents, she had changed her religion later in life, but did not change her identification card because of the hurdles attached to the process of doing so.

Since officials in Turkey determine a person’s burial rituals according to the indication of religion on her or his identification card, she was buried in a Muslim cemetery. Her son Soner Tufan told Sunday’s Zaman that her burial ceremony on June 2 was full of irony. “First the Muslim prayer leader wanted to carry on a ceremony. We told him about our being Christian, but he said he has to do his job. The imam read prayers and naturally expected to be followed, but there was a patient silence. We wanted him to finish up so we could continue with our own little ceremony,” Tufan said, emphasizing that burial ceremonies are important in Christianity.

The problem he pointed out is in regards to respecting one’s beliefs and will. “My mother would have wanted to be buried in a Christian cemetery with a Christian burial ceremony, but nobody cared about her will or our declaration because of her identification card,” he said. When asked why she did not change her identification card after becoming a Christian, Tufan said she did not want to get into trouble for doing it. “The bureaucracy that you have to go through for that kind of a change is terrible,” he said. “Plus officials question why you did it.”

Tufan is referring to the questioning by public registration officials when somebody wants to change his or her religion. “They ask you why you changed your religion. They even try to convince you that Islam is the best religion. Actually, their questions and remarks reach the level of harassment,” he said. After becoming a Christian, Tufan changed his identity card in 1996. “I completed all the hard work for the necessary paper work. But the hardest part was the remarks that I had to endure at the public registration office,” he added.

Just like his mother, Tufan’s father also avoided changing his identification card and was buried in a Muslim cemetery. He is now joined by his wife in his grave in an Ankara cemetery. They were allowed to have a gravestone in accordance with their Christian traditions, but were not allowed to display a cross. “We have a verse from the Bible there,” Tufan said.

According to Tufan, the core of the matter is that a person’s declaration should be given utmost importance when it comes to the practice of freedom of religion. He says: “If a person or his or her family wants a certain type of burial ceremony, this should be respected and officials should ease the process for people, not make it harder.”

Human rights lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz told Sunday’s Zaman that there are other problems, too. “This practice is against freedom of conscience and religion. It is also not correct from a humanitarian perspective,” he said, indicating that a person should not be in a position to declare his or her religion every time he or she shows an identity card. In that regard, he said, the religion box on identification cards should be removed, or at least be optional.

“It’s quite possible that you can be discriminated against because of your religion,” he said.

Pointing out additional problems, he said the Turkish practice is discriminatory in itself because the state does not allow one to indicate belief systems on identification cards other than major religions, like Islam, Christianity and Buddhism, recognized by the Republic of Turkey. Therefore, for example, Alevis of Turkey do not even have the choice of indicating their belief on their identification cards.

Last year in February, the European Court of Human Rights issued a landmark ruling which said whether obligatory or optional, displaying one’s religion on identity cards is a violation of human rights. The ruling was in response to a case filed by a Turkish citizen who is a member of the Alevi community. A complaint filed with the court in June 2005 by Sinan Işık, who in 2004 applied to a Turkish court requesting that his identity card feature the word “Alevi” rather than the word “Islam.”

Until 2006 it was obligatory in Turkey for the card holder’s religion to be indicated on an identity card, yet since 2006 he or she has been entitled to request that the entry be left blank. But both Cengiz and Tufan said it is a widespread practice that public registration officials automatically write Islam on a person’s identity card.

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Charter Schools Tied to Turkey Grow in Texas

2011-06-07T10:12:00.002+03:00

TDM Contracting was only a month old when it won its first job, an $8.2 million contract to build the Harmony School of Innovation, a publicly financed charter school that opened last fall in San Antonio.

It was one of six big charter school contracts TDM and another upstart company have shared since January 2009, a total of $50 million in construction business. Other companies scrambling for work in a poor economy wondered: How had they qualified for such big jobs so fast?

The secret lay in the meteoric rise and financial clout of the Cosmos Foundation, a charter school operator founded a decade ago by a group of professors and businessmen from Turkey. Operating under the name Harmony Schools, Cosmos has moved quickly to become the largest charter school operator in Texas, with 33 schools receiving more than $100 million a year in taxpayer funds.

Some of the schools’ operators and founders, and many of their suppliers, are followers of Fethullah Gulen, a charismatic Turkish preacher of a moderate brand of Islam whose devotees have built a worldwide religious, social and nationalistic movement in his name. Gulen followers have been involved in starting similar schools around the country — there are about 120 in all, mostly in urban centers in 25 states, one of the largest collections of charter schools in America.

The growth of these “Turkish schools,” as they are often called, has come with a measure of backlash, not all of it untainted by xenophobia. Nationwide, the primary focus of complaints has been on hundreds of teachers and administrators imported from Turkey: in Ohio and Illinois, the federal Department of Labor is investigating union accusations that the schools have abused a special visa program in bringing in their expatriate employees.

But an examination by The New York Times of the Harmony Schools in Texas casts light on a different area: the way they spend public money. And it raises questions about whether, ultimately, the schools are using taxpayer dollars to benefit the Gulen movement — by giving business to Gulen followers, or through financial arrangements with local foundations that promote Gulen teachings and Turkish culture.

“It’s basically a mission of our organization,” said Soner Tarim, the superintendent of the 33 Texas schools.

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Selective religious freedom is not freedom: The Turkish Case

2011-06-07T09:54:00.000+03:00

What some observers see as “Turkey’s bloodless civil war” was perhaps best captured in the words of Bülent Arınç, then parliamentary speaker and today deputy prime minister, in the run-up to the presidential election in 2007, “They [secular Turks] don’t want a Muslim president!” Yet Turkey’s former presidents or potential rivals to Mr. Arınç’s favorite candidate were neither Christians nor Jews, or anything but adherents to Islam. For Mr. Arınç, “Muslim” meant a “Muslim like me.”

Turkey’s bloodless civil war is between pious Muslims who want the public space to be dominated by their interpretation of religion and less dogmatic and secular Muslims who believe in strict separation of state and mosque. Mr. Arınç’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has advocated greater religious freedoms since it came to power in 2002, but its favoritism toward a chosen practice of piety has deeply polarized Turkey. Turkey's “war of religion” is not between two religions, nor is it between the faithful and atheists; it is a contest between believers of the same faith with divergent interpretations of its strictures and/or different levels of observance.

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The Diyanet – the elephant in Turkey's religious freedom room?

2011-05-05T09:33:00.001+03:00

The Diyanet, or Presidency of Religious Affairs, is a state institution reporting to the Prime Minster's Office and exerts a very large influence on the extent to which freedom of religion or belief can be enjoyed in Turkey, Forum 18 News Service notes. Massive state financial and institutional support of the Diyanet along with its activities - including its biases against Muslim and non-Muslim beliefs it dislikes - make it difficult for people inside and outside the Diyanet's structures to exercise freedom of religion or belief. This has been reinforced by the latest law governing the Diyanet, which increases its influence without addressing its current incompatibility with Turkey's human rights obligations. For a political party to propose removing the Diyanet from the state's structures would render that party liable to be closed down under Turkish law. Despite the need for change in the Diyanet-state relationship, civil society proposals for change have been described by the government as "unjust" and "too assertive for such a sensitive issue".

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Turkey on religious freedom watch list for 3rd year in a row

2011-05-01T10:10:00.001+03:00

Turkey remains on a US panel’s watch list of 11 countries for the third year in a row for its violations of religious freedom, according to the annual country report released by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

“Turkey was first placed on the USCIRF watch list in 2009, and the commission notes with concern that conditions have deteriorated further since then, underscoring the need for continued vigilance in monitoring,” the report states. According to the report, the Turkish government continues to impose serious limitations on freedom of religion or belief, thereby threatening the continued vitality and survival of minority religious communities in Turkey. The USCIRF report recognizes that Turkey has a democratic government and an energetic civil society and media, and that the country’s Constitution protects the freedom of belief and worship as well as the private dissemination of religious ideas, but it also criticizes the Turkish government’s formal and longstanding efforts to control religion by imposing suffocating regulations by denying full legal status to religious institutions, resulting in serious violations of religious freedom.

Moreover, according to the said report, the government in Turkey has failed to take decisive action to correct the climate of impunity against religious minorities and to make the necessary institutional reforms to reverse these conditions.

“Instead, Turkey continues to intervene in the internal governance and education of religious communities and to confiscate places of worship,” the commission states. The alleged involvement of state and military officials in the Ergenekon conspiracy, which includes alleged plans to assassinate minority religious leaders and to bomb mosques, is also of serious concern, according to the USCIRF report. It also criticizes the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) for the alleged use of preventive arrests to repress critics.

The report says it is concerning that there is a rise in anti-Semitism in Turkish society and media. “Due to these concerns, and others set forth in the related chapter, USCIRF continues to place Turkey on its watch list in 2011,” the report notes.

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Another obstacle to justice in the Malatya deaths

2011-04-27T12:02:00.000+03:00

As it relates to the Malatya murder case in Turkey, the refrain "Justice moves very slowly" is becoming all too common.

April 18 marked four years since the brutal murders of three Christian missionaries in the bookstore they ran.

Delay after delay slowed the process until the case appeared to have stalled out. Then, on March 23, police arrested 27 people in six days for their connections to Ergenekon and the Malatya slayings. Rody Rodeheaver with IN Network says, "I think there was a lot of hope on the part of the plaintiff's attorneys that with the recent movement against Ergenekon and the arrest of 20 people, they were hoping that would really lead to a possible merger of the case in Malatya and the case against Ergenekon."

Subsequent investigation linked the Ergenekon (Deep State) to the slayings in such a way that they began to look like an ordered "hit" from the highest levels of government.

Now, word is that the prosecutor who has overseen the investigation into Ergenekon from the beginning is no longer on the case. Zekeriya Oz has apparently been promoted to deputy chief prosecutor of Istanbul. He joins three other prosecutors digging for the truth who were removed from the investigation. Rodeheaver says, "Since there've been all of these changes in the makeup of the people who are taking the lead in some of these investigations, it's unfortunate and will probably lead to more delays."

These events are disappointing to the Christians in Turkey. The seeming lack of energy with which this case has been pursued also sends a message to believers that not only are they second-class citizens, but that the government may not protect them from the nationalists. "All of these things tend to create emotional insecurity. When you see these things happen over and over again, it's just human to be concerned."

However, says Rodeheaver, from what he's seen of the national Church, "If you're a Christian, you really need to trust in the sovereignty of God and know that your days really need to be ordered by your Savior."

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‘Monstrosity’ in Kars is striking back

2011-04-24T09:42:00.002+03:00

We can see from the cables disclosed by WikiLeaks that the prime minister and some ministers were present at the National Security Council (MGK) in 2002 when missionary work was being defined as an internal threat and that they took part in this decision.

In light of the information we have today we understand that having the MGK define missionary activities as a “threat” was part of a big plot against the government. I have tried to explain this in my earlier articles. After the classification of missionary activities as a threat in 2002, a campaign was launched against missionaries that resulted in attacks against them. The great plan was this: The deep state would create a connection between the presence of an “Islamic party” in power and attacks against Christians. In this way, the world would see the intolerant nature of “Islamists” and Europe would cut off its support for the government. The attacks on Christians were being used to lay the groundwork for a coup against the government.

In Turkey, all political parties have been influenced by nationalism to varying degrees. Even though the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is a political party that consists mainly of religious Muslims, it also has a nationalist component. Those who planned coups aimed to use missionary work as a scapegoat to seize religious people and push them towards a nationalist course, which they managed to do to a certain degree.

Nationalism in Turkey is a dominant idea in the mentality of Turkish society, which several surprised foreign observers have come to realize. Even though the intensity of nationalism rises and falls from time to time, it remains an unchangeable, main current in the background of the political scene.

Of course there are many reasons for why nationalism is as strong as it is. Turkey’s “founding myth” is based on the struggle for the independence of a state that is encircled by enemies and under the occupation of foreign forces. Turkish nationalism emerged quite late, which is why it is very reactive. Since Turkey became a racially diverse country, the concept of “being a Turk” was defined through religion rather than race. A Turk was a Muslim, or more precisely, a Turk was not a non-Muslim. This is a key part of the issue; modern Turkey was constructed on the expulsion and exclusion of non-Muslims from these territories. The modernizing force that excluded non-Muslims also kept Islam and Muslims under its control. I have tried to explain how all these things happened in the past many times.

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Christian missionaries in Turkey become targets for militant nationalist

2011-04-14T20:50:00.000+03:00

When a Protestant minister in the city of Izmir left his church one day this month, he saw a man pointing a weapon at him and shouting: "Stop proselytizing! You will pay!"

The attacker in front of the Dirilis Kilisesi, or Church of the Resurrection, was quickly overwhelmed, but the incident on the evening of April 1 was a reminder of the hatred that some radical Turkish nationalists feel for Christian missionaries. Radical nationalists in Turkey are not opposed to Christian missionaries for religious reasons, Ferhat Kentel, a sociologist at Istanbul's Bilgi University, said about the hatred against missionaries.

"It is an effort by nationalists to create enemies, a perception of threat," Dr Kentel said. "It has nothing to do with Islam. It is an ideological phenomenon." He said the fear of missionaries was "a symbol for dangers coming from outside". Turkish nationalists see Islam as a unifying force of the country that will be undermined if Christians are allowed to proselytize.

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Big Changes Open Politics to Turkish Minorities

2011-04-07T11:41:00.000+03:00

Markus Urek was 15 when his Syriac Christian family grew so fearful for the lives of their children in Turkey that they sent them abroad.

Syriac Christians have lived in southeastern Anatolia for almost two millennia, but over the past decades they have dwindled to a tiny minority in the Turkish republic, their numbers reduced by poverty, persecution and the war fought between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish Army on their ancestral homeland.

Mr. Urek spent years shuttling between Germany, Turkey and the United States to complete his education before returning to settle in Ankara last year.

Now he is running for Parliament. “If I am elected, I will be the first Syriac deputy in the history of this country — not only in the Turkish Republic, but the Ottoman Empire as well,” Mr. Urek, 33, said in an interview. “Turkish democracy has improved. That’s why I have the courage to try.”

Just eight years ago, such a run for office would have been unthinkable, Mr. Urek said. “Every Syriac knew it was impossible to be in Parliament, that’s why no one tried.” Now, he said, “I think I have a chance.”

Mr. Urek, a devout Christian, is hoping for a place on the ticket of the Islam-rooted Justice and Development Party, or AKP, Turkey’s governing party, which he credits for much of the country’s political progress.

Turkey is preparing for a general election on June 12, and though little suspense surrounds the outcome, the campaign reflects just how radically this society has transformed itself in the past decade by widening individual, religious and ethnic rights under Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

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Zirve as litmus test for Ergenekon

2011-04-04T08:19:00.002+03:00

Last week, it published correspondence displaying how paranoia about missionaries and Christians in Turkey was manipulated by Ergenekon, and with the publication of this correspondence, the big picture of the murder of Christian missionaries in Malatya was completed. And prosecutor Zekeriya Öz was “promoted” away from the Ergenekon investigation the day he touched on the “theologians” factor that provided the link between the missionary issue and the Zirve massacre. The timing of his removal was really meaningful.

We have been informed that the US Embassy in Ankara sent a letter to Turkish officials, expressing their concerns about the emerging harsh discourse targeting minorities and Christian missionaries, particularly in 2005, and warning that it may lead to violence. In his letter to then-State Minister Mehmet Aydın, then-US Ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman said: “As you will recall, during our meeting I had said that I was concerned that Turkish officials’ anti-Christian discourse, coupled with a general rise in nationalist sentiments, may pave the way for violence against Christians. Shortly after our meeting, I learned that two assailants threw incendiary bombs at the International Protestant Church in Ankara early in the morning on April 21.”

On April 1, 2005, political counselor in Ankara John Kunstadter sent a cable to Washington, reporting two years before the Zirve Massacre that the situation in Malatya was very serious. He wrote that he went to Malatya on March 22, 2005, and met the members of the Protestant community there. A Christian British national told him that the Protestant community in Malatya consisted of 20 people from four families and they were concerned about the recent increase in publications against Protestants in local papers during the past 18 months.

By looking at future developments in the Zirve case, we will understand whether the Ergenekon investigation is going to continue at full speed, as officials promised, after the removal of prosecutor Öz.

So I call on everyone to watch this historic case attentively.

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Turkish police search theology professors' homes in murder probe

2011-03-30T22:05:00.001+03:00

Police searched the homes of a handful of Turkish theology professors on Wednesday in connection with a probe into the 2007 murder of three Christian missionaries, Turkish media reported.

Police raided the Istanbul apartment of Zekeriya Beyaz, a well- known theologian who had written an unpublished manuscript on the political activities of certain religious movements in Turkey, along with the homes and offices of at least four professors in other provinces.

Wednesday's raids came just a week after police searched the offices of a publishing house and the mainstream newspaper Radikal, confiscating copies of an unpublished manuscript, 'The Army of the Imam.'

The book, which prosecutors said was a document of interest in the Ergenekon investigation, alleges infiltration of the police force by Gulenists, members of a controversial Islamist group.

Its author, investigative journalist Ahmet Sik, is one of nearly 10 journalists and writers who have been arrested in the Ergenekon case within the last two months.
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Day of prayer marks martyrdom of Christians in Turkey Read more: Day of prayer marks martyrdom of Christians in Turkey

2011-03-29T10:16:00.002+03:00

April 18 has been designated by an alliance of Christian groups as International Pray for Turkey Day in remembrance of three Christian missionaries who had agreed to meet with a group of Muslims as part of their ministry there and were slaughtered for their willingness to discuss Christianity.

A Christian film company, the Alliance of Protestant Churches of Turkey, and a Christian human rights group chose that day because it's the fourth anniversary of the murder of Turkish Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German missionary Tilman Geske – apparently by five Muslim Turkish nationalists in Malatya.

Read more: Day of prayer marks martyrdom of Christians in Turkey

Zirve victim’s widow: Massacre’s codes in Ergenekon, Cage

2011-03-28T07:27:00.000+03:00

The widow of German national Tilman Geske, who was brutally killed along with two colleagues at a Christian publishing house in Malatya in 2007 at the hands of young ultranationalists, has said her husband's murder was part of a greater plan to provoke chaos in society and increase pressure on the government, as mentioned in the plans of Ergenekon and those who devised the Cage plan.

“We had known that the Zirve massacre was not the individual work of the suspects mentioned. It is understood it was carried out to put the government in a tight spot. The Cage plan clearly exposes everything. The aim of the massacre is mentioned there,” Suzanna Geske told Today’s Zaman.

The Malatya murders are thought to be a part of the Cage Action Plan, a subversive plot allegedly devised by military officers that sought to undermine the government through the assassination of non-Muslims and other acts of terror. The Cage plan was allegedly drawn up at the order of Ergenekon, a clandestine criminal network charged with plotting to overthrow the democratically elected government by creating large-scale chaos in the country.

According to Geske, shedding light on the Malatya massacre will be a turning point for Turkey. She thinks the revelation of the actual perpetrators of the murders will contribute a lot to Turkish democracy. “I love my country [Turkey.] My husband was killed but solving this case is more important for my country than for myself,” she added.

The link between the missionary murders and Ergenekon has long been suspected and the ongoing case in the Malatya 3rd High Criminal Court is expected to be merged with the ongoing Ergenekon case once the prosecutor’s investigation into the instigators of the Zirve murders is completed.

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More suspects arrested today in 2007 murder of three Christians in Turkey

2011-03-23T10:33:00.000+02:00

According to Associated Press, World Bulletin, and other sources, the Turkish government today arrested seven suspects for plotting and inciting the murder of three Christians in 2007. The victims had distributed Christian literature in a country that is only 1% Christian. The men, Necati Aydun, Ugur Yuksel, and Tilmann Ekkehart Geske (a German national), were killed at the Zirve Publishing House in Malatya. At the time, five young men were arrested at the crime scene, yet their trial is still ongoing.

Those arrested include five military officers and two civilians. The government claims that these suspects, as well as others that have been recently arrested, were part of a coup plot begun in 2003. As part of this plot, the predominantly military suspects are thought to have incited and helped in the murders of various minorities to help create chaos and destabilize the present government. There has always been tension between the secular military and the Islamic-based government, headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who came to power in 2002. The plot and investigation is called Ergenekon. The evidence used for the arrests varies according to the reports, it coming from a 2008 audio cd provided by a secret witness or a letter provided by a whistle-blower.

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Christians in Turkey Face Harassment; Murder Trial Stalls

2011-03-17T16:09:00.000+02:00

Though the horrific scale of the 2007 Malatya murders has not been repeated in Turkey’s Protestant church, a recent report shows harassment continues to be a daily problem for the country’s Christians and churches.

Discrimination, slander and attacks against churches were among the examples of ongoing harassment that the Turkish Association of Protestant Churches (TEK) recorded in 2010.

In an eight-page report published earlier this year, TEK’s Committee for Religious Freedom and Legal Affairs outlined problems Protestants face. Turkish laws and “negative attitudes of civil servants” continue to make it nearly impossible for non-Muslims to establish places of worship, the committee reported. Three churches faced legal problems last year regarding their buildings, according to the report.

Missionary activities are still considered a national threat despite the existence of Turkish laws guaranteeing citizens the freedom to propagate and teach their faith, and children are victims of discrimination at school, according to the report. Though the Religious Education General Directorate for Higher Education and Training Committee allows non-Muslim students to stay out of religious classes, parents have reported cases in which they were not able to take their children out of such courses.

“After four years [since the Malatya murders], Turkey’s religious freedoms have not improved as desired,” said attorney Erdal Dogan. “Christians, Alevis [a Shiite sub-community] and people of other beliefs are still not protected by law. And people of other faiths apart from Muslims have no legal status. Since racism is still prevalent in the context of freedom, discrimination in its turn has become a fact of life.”

About a third of Turks are estimated to be Alevis.

Turkey rose to 30th place in Open Doors’ 2011 World Watch List of nations in which persecution against Christians takes place, up from 35th place the previous year. The Christian support organization cited deteriorating conditions as the secular country applied some laws in discriminatory ways against Christians.

Lınk

Turkish Protestants still face 'long path' to religious freedom

2011-03-08T17:47:00.001+02:00

A senior Turkish Protestant has said his country's small Christian churches still face severe hardships, despite recent pledges by the government to improve protection of religious rights - writes Jonathan Luxmoore.

"We can't deny certain positive steps - since 2005, we've been able to apply for legal status as registered associations," said Zekai Tanyar, executive board chairman of Turkey's Association of Protestant Churches.

"But full religious freedom is still a long way off here, and all Christian denominations face difficulties. Government officials assure us they'll look into our problems, such as by offering us police protection. But no attempt is being made to present us in a more positive light."

The 58-year-old Protestant official was speaking after publication in early February of a letter to the Turkish government by Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner, which welcomed a "constructive dialogue" now underway on religious rights, but also highlighted continuing restrictions.

In an ENI interview, Tanyar said Protestants differed from Turkey's Armenian and Greek Orthodox Christians, since most came from recent Muslim Turkish backgrounds, rather than from ethnic minorities, and did not have historic claims to churches and properties in the country.

However, he added that, despite being ethnic Turks, they were viewed as "not belonging," and as "collaborators with the forces of Christendom which are out to break up the country." All Turkish governments had sought to avoid any impression of "compromising with Christians," Tanyar said.

"The dialogue occurring is a polite, diplomatic process, which hasn't so far achieved anything very concrete - mentalities haven't changed and the same age-old prejudices live on," said Tanyar, whose association includes about 4,000 members in 33 churches.

Turkey has been negotiating accession to the EU since 2005, but has faced opposition to its membership bid because of a lack of internal reforms, as well as persistent complaints from ethnic and religious minorities about being denied equal rights and protections in the country, most of whose 71.5 million inhabitants are Sunni Muslims.

In his letter to Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Hammarberg said he welcomed recent government efforts to act against publications inciting hatred and hostility towards non-Muslims, and to comply with judgments by the European Court of Human Rights.

However, he added that "outstanding issues" remained to be tackled, including restrictions on training Christian clergy, and a lack of "objectivity and pluralism" in religious education that respected the rights of non-Muslim parents.

In an official reply, Turkey's EU ambassador, Daryal Batibay, said religious freedom had seen "positive developments," adding that his government had established "direct dialogue" with several Christian denominations, and was reviewing religious education and the insertion of religious affiliations on Turkish identity cards, which has been ruled a violation of rights by the European Court.

However, in the interview with ENI, Tanyar said the inclusion of a "religion box" on IDs still caused difficulties for Christians, adding that six Protestant pastors were currently under police protection after death threats.

The association chairman said Protestants were now receiving responses when they complained about the contents of schoolbooks, but added that the education directors had refused to remove a passage from one textbook for 12-year-olds, which branded Christian missionaries a "major danger to the country."

"The authorities know Turkey has to provide religious freedom as a democracy - but they don't like it," Tanyar told ENI. "We are much more proactive than other Christian groups in looking after our rights, and people are generally less fearful and more hopeful about the future. But government ministers know they will lose support if they show the slightest co-operation with Christian churches."

Among recent gestures, Erdogan ordered local authorities last May to "uphold the rights of the Christian and Jewish minorities" and "behave with respect towards their clergy," while the government returned several early medieval churches to Orthodox Christians and promised Turkish citizenship rights to Orthodox metropolitans serving with the Istanbul-based Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate.

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Anti-terror police foil alleged plot to kill Christian cleric in Istanbul

2011-03-06T21:57:00.000+02:00

Istanbul police’s anti-terror unit apprehended two suspects accused of plotting to assassinate a priest in the city’s Fatih district, Doğan news agency, or DHA, reported Saturday.

Law enforcement officers alleged that a suspect who was identified only as E.T., and who was reported to be under 18 years of age, offered 18-year-old Okan G. 50 Turkish Liras to kill the unnamed priest.

Police raided the suspects’ homes in Istanbul’s Gaziosmanpaşa district and detained the pair, seizing two guns in the process. Officers later revealed that one of the guns could be altered to shoot metal balls.

The suspects were later taken for questioning at the Istanbul Police Department on Vatan Avenue in the Fatih district.

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Right To Have Places Of Worship – A Trapped Right

2011-03-05T09:01:00.000+02:00

The right to establish, own, and maintain places of worship is a fundamental part of the right to freedom of religion or belief. This is very clear in the international human rights standards – such as Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Turkey is a party. Yet religious communities in Turkey face serious obstacles – both formal and informal – preventing them from enjoying this right effectively, Forum 18 News Service notes. For example, only the Diyanet, or Presidency of Religious Affairs which reports to the Prime Minister’s Office, can open mosques and administer them.

These obstacles are in addition to the fundamental problem that no community – whether Muslim, Jewish, Armenian Apostolic, Greek Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Baha’i, Jehovah’s Witness, or any other – has any legal status in Turkish law. This leads to situations such as communities being unable to legally prove they own buildings they pay property tax on.

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Turks restore Armenian Churches “to draw faith tourists from around the world”

2011-02-10T11:58:00.001+02:00

According to the Turkish media publication, after Surb Khach (Holy Cross) Church in Akhtamar Island, another Armenian Church, Surb Giragos in Diyarbak?r is now preparing for a religious ceremony.

The Istanbul Armenian Foundation undertook the restoration of the church, bringing together Turkey and the Armenian Diaspora.
Officials from Turkey, Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora are expected to attend a Divine Liturgy to celebrate the church’s reopening, which is scheduled for later this year, Turkish Hurriet informed.

“After the restoration process, we are planning to draw faith tourists from around the world,” Surb Giragos Armenian Church Foundation Chairman Ergun Ayik said.

Note, according to some art historians, the church is the largest in the Middle East. The complex sprawls over 3,200 square meters and includes priests’ houses, chapels and a school. The church was seized by the German army in 1913 and served as their local headquarters until 1918, when it was converted into a fabric warehouse.

Education should facilitate, not undermine, freedom of religion or belief

2011-01-05T19:53:00.001+02:00

The need to review and reform Turkey's primary and secondary school education system to facilitate freedom of religion or belief is urgent. Members of various religious communities have identified key problems in the compulsory Religious Culture and Knowledge of Ethics school classes themselves, in the way exemption from these classes is strictly limited, and in the discrimination experienced by children seeking exemption and their parents or guardians. Also, textbooks in classes on the History of Turkish Republican Reforms and Atatürkism provide misleading information encouraging intolerance.

Many in Turkey – from both religious and secular backgrounds – consider that this is an urgent problem, as these aspects of the school system play a role in fuelling intolerance and a type of nationalism behind violent attacks and possibly even murders experienced by vulnerable groups.

Compulsory classes, limited exemptions

Religious Culture and Knowledge of Ethics classes, for between one and two hours a week, are compulsory in all primary and secondary schools. Lessons are heavily based on the Sunni branch of Islam, and the textbooks are prepared and published by the Education Ministry. The state must provide some classes in this subject – although not necessarily in the current form - as Article 24 ("Freedom of religion and conscience") of the 1982 Constitution states that: "Education and instruction in religion and ethics shall be conducted under state supervision and control. Instruction in religious culture and moral education shall be compulsory in the curricula of primary and secondary schools."

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All ethnic groups in Turkey are equal

2011-01-05T19:50:00.002+02:00

All the members of Turkey’s ethnic and religious groups are “first-class citizens,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said during Tuesday parliamentary group meetings while also criticizing the country’s main pro-Kurdish party.

“Our country has many ethnic components. We see this as richness. We said we would not practice ethnic, regional or religious nationalism. There are those who mock us, but we see them as sub-identities that unite,” said Erdoğan

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When will prosecutors investigate Ergenekon’s anti-Christian activities?

2010-12-12T02:35:00.000+02:00

The Ergenekon indictment’s annexes include a series of reports titled “Summary of Daily Intelligence of Aegean Army Intelligence Department.” These reports show that activities and events in churches across Turkey were closely monitored. The reports contain detailed blacklists and intelligence reports on almost all Christian groups in Turkey.

But the most striking aspect is that Christians were attacked in all of the provinces that were subject to careful scrutiny in the reports. Let us recall these attacks: The Dirili Protestant Church was attacked in January 2005; a hand grenade was found on the roof of the Greek Patriarchate in February 2005. The Antalya Aziz Pavlus Church was set on fire in April 2005. Christian workers of a clothing store were attacked in August 2005. A land mine exploded on a road after a vehicle carrying a Syriac bishop passed by in August 2005. The leader of the Adana Protestant Church, Kamil Kıroğlu, was brutally beaten in January 2006. Father Andrea Santora was killed in Trabzon in February 2006. Members of the Mersin Catholic Church were threatened with knives in March 2006. The Syriac Church in Diyarbakır was raided and members were threatened in April 2006. The Orthodox community in Bergama was protested and not allowed to perform their service in May 2006. The Protestant church in Ödemiş was attacked with Molotov cocktails in November 2006. Priest Francois Rene Brunissen was stabbed in January 2006. Three Christian missioners were slain in April 2007. Priest Adriano Franchini was stabbed in İzmir in December 2007.

This list does not include death threats that churches and their leaders constantly receive. All these attacks happened in provinces that were mentioned in the “blacklists.” Attacks against Christians have virtually stopped ever since the Ergenekon case began.

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Malatya massacre victim's widow wants case merged with Cage plan

2010-12-09T04:53:00.000+02:00

Endangered Species: Religious minorities in Turkey

2010-11-16T05:34:00.000+02:00

In his recent visit to Turkey, German president Christian Wulff correctly stated that Christianity belongs to Turkey. In the Turkish city of Antakya, Jesus` devotees for the first time called themselves as Christians. Anatolia was the heartland of the Christian Byzantine Empire and millions of Christians and other religious minorities lived in the Ottoman Empire.

In light of this history, the situation of Christians and other religious minorities in Turkey today is alarming. Having suffered genocide, displacement and discrimination, the number of religious minorities from Christian and Jewish decent has diminished significantly. Today, only 1% of the Turkish population is Christian or Jewish constituting only 92.000 citizens of Armenian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox or Jewish belief. In addition, the Muslim minority of the 15 to 20 million Alevis in Turkey faces major impediments with regard to the exercise of their belief.

While Atatürk`s foundation of a modern Turkish nation is based on the principle of laicism, placing religion in the private sphere, the definition of the "Turkish" nation was always equated with a "Muslim" nation. Accordingly, devotees of an alien religion were considered as danger to national unity. Although the Treaty of Lausanne grants special legal minority status to "non-Muslim minorities" and even the Turkish Constitution enshrines freedom of belief, worship and prohibition of discrimination on religious grounds, these principles were invalidated by contradictory articles and the adoption of problematic laws, such as the law on foundations.

As a consequence, religious minorities in Turkey experience significant hurdles in exercising their religion: Up until today, churches do not have a legal status. They are considered as foundations, whose rights are strictly regulated by the General Directorate for Foundations. Despite of the amendments on the law of foundation, minority foundations still face problems in the acquisition of properties and the building of new churches. Many congregations, monastery Mor Gabriel being the most popular example, still struggle with unlawful expropriations. The religious affiliation is clearly stated in the I.D. card opening the floodgates to harassment by state officials and policemen. Furthermore, the prohibition of the training of priests by non-Turkish citizens accompanied with the closing of several seminaries makes it almost impossible to train young priests.

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Turkey's top religious official dismissed

2010-11-12T20:03:00.000+02:00

The head of Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate has been abruptly dismissed, local media reported Thursday.
Ali Bardakoglu ran the body for seven years. He will be replaced by his deputy, Mehmet Gormez.
'Radical changes are about to happen in the directorate's structure. Bardakoglu was replaced in the scope of these changes,' State Minister for Religion Faruk Celik was quoted as saying by the daily Milliyet.
Although secular, Turkey is deeply involved in religious life, with the directorate - known as Diyanet - responsible for managing some 78,000 mosques and a bureaucracy that is exceeded only by the military and the education system in terms of size and budget.
The Diyanet plays perhaps the most important role in shaping Turkish religious life.
In recent years, it has introduced various innovations, such as female preachers and deputy imams and a project to update the Hadith - a collection of the words and deeds of the prophet Mohammed.

Politicians and famous soccer player attend 10-year anniversary of a local church’s foundation

2010-10-25T04:28:00.002+03:00

This weekend marks the 10th anniversary of the Altintepe Protestant Church Foundation. In what was celebrated as a "miracle of tolerance" by the leadership of the foundation, the anniversary was attended by many local dignitaries and a famous Christian soccer player from Brazil, who is currently playing for an Istanbul team. The program had many highlights, including a speech by Bobo, the Brazilian soccer player and different musical performances. Also in attendance were leaders from other Christian churches and several guests from outside of Turkey.

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Christians in Turkey Acquitted of ‘Insulting Turkishness’

2010-10-19T20:32:00.000+03:00

After four years of legal battle in a Turkish court, a judge acquitted two Christians of insulting Turkey and its people by spreading Christianity, but not without slapping them with a hefty fine for a spurious charge.

Four years ago this month, Turan Topal, 50, and Hakan Tastan, 41, started a legal battle after gendarmerie officers produced false witnesses to accuse them of spreading their faith and allegedly “insulting Turkishness, the military and Islam.”

At the Silivri court an hour west of Istanbul, Judge Hayrettin Sevim on Thursday (Oct. 14) acquitted the defendants of two charges that they had insulted the Turkish state (Article 301) and that they had insulted its people (Article 216) by spreading Christianity. Sevim cited lack of evidence.

He found them guilty, however, of collecting information on citizens without permission (Article 135) and sentenced them to seven months of imprisonment each. The court ruled that the two men could each pay a 4,500 lira (US$3,170) fine instead of serving time, said their lawyer Haydar Polat.

Tastan expressed mixed feelings about the verdicts.

“For both Turan and I, being found innocent from the accusation that we insulted the Turkish people was the most important thing for us, because we’ve always said we’re proud to be Turks,” Tastan said by telephone. “But it is unjust that they are sentencing us for collecting people’s information.”

At the time of their arrests, Topal and Tastan were volunteers with The Bible Research Center, which has since acquired official association status and is now called The Association for Propagating Knowledge of the Bible. The two men had used contact information that individuals interested in Christianity had volunteered to provide on the association’s website.

Administrators of the association stated openly to local authorities that their goal was to disseminate information about Christianity.

The two men and their lawyer said they will be ready to appeal the unjust decision of the court when they have seen the official statement, which the court should issue within a month. Polat said the appeal process will take over a year.

“Why should we have to continue the legal battle and appeal this?” asked Tastan. “We are not responsible for the information that was collected. So why are they fining us for this? So, we continue our legal adventure.”

Still, he expressed qualified happiness.

“We are free from the charges that we have insulted the Turkish state and the people of Turkey and we’re glad for that, but we are sorry about the court’s sentence,” Tastan said. “We’re happy on one hand, and sorry on the other.”

The court hearing lasted just a few minutes, said Polat.

“The judges came to the court hearing ready with their decision,” Polat said. “Their file was complete, and there was neither other evidence nor witnesses.”

Polat was hesitant to comment on whether the decision to convict the men of collecting private data without permission was because they are Christians. He did underline, however, that the court’s decision to fine the men was unjust, and that they plan to appeal it after the court issues an official written verdict.

“This was the court’s decision,” said Polat, “but we believe this is not fair. This decision is inconsistent with the law.”

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Turkish nationalists accused of killing bishop

2010-10-16T02:04:00.001+03:00

Turkey's top Roman Catholic bishop has publicly accused Turkish ultra-nationalists and religious fanatics of being behind the slaying of the country's senior bishop in June.
Monsignor Luigi Padovese, the Vatican's apostolic vicar in Anatolia, was stabbed to death by his driver outside his home in Iskenderun on June 3, a day before he was to leave for Cyprus to meet Pope Benedict XVI.
The slaying shocked the Turkish church and cast a cloud over Benedict's visit. It was the latest in a string of attacks in recent years on Christians in predominantly Muslim Turkey, where Christians make up less than 1 percent of the 70 million population.
Turkish officials have insisted the slaying was personal and not religious or politically motivated, and the driver's lawyer has said the suspect had mental problems.
But the head of Turkey's bishops' conference, Monsignor Ruggero Francheschini, told a Vatican meeting Thursday that Padovese was the victim of "premeditated murder" by the same forces that Padovese had denounced for killing a priest in 2006 and three Christians in 2007.

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Turkey's dwindling Orthodox Christians fear end is approaching

2010-10-16T01:54:00.001+03:00

Andreas Zografos left Turkey in 1974 amid economic and political turmoil to find work in Europe, but he always knew he would return home.

"The ties of this land are strong. I was drawn back by the blue of the sea, the colour of the sky," he says.

A Greek Orthodox Christian, Zografos, 63, and his wife today tend to the 19th-century St Nicholas Church, where his grandfather painted vibrant icons, on Heybeliada, or Halki in Greek, an island off the Istanbul coast.

Heybeliada was home to a few thousand ethnic Greeks when he left, Zografos says. About 25 remain, part of a dwindling community of 2,500 Greeks in Istanbul, capital of the Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire until the Ottoman conquest of 1453.

Istanbul, a city of 13 million Muslims, is still the seat of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world's 250 million Orthodox.

"We are proud our patriarch is still here in the land where our faith began. This is holy land," Zografos says.

But vast numbers of Christians have left their ancient homeland and now make up just 0.13 percent of Turkey's population of 73 million people.

He remembers Sundays in the 1960s when the congregation would fill the basilica-style church and spill into the narthex.

"If I don't do this, who will?" says Zografos, who says he is not religious but feels a duty to serve his community.

"Soon there will be just one or two of us left on the island. I don't see anything else but the end."

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Turkish State Minister calls Christians “gavur” (unfaithful)

2010-10-16T01:50:00.001+03:00

The Chair of the Syriac Culture Association Yuhanna Aktas stated Turkish State Minister Faruk Celik should apologize to Christians for calling them gavur (an offensive ethnic slur used by Muslims in Turkey to describe all who are non-Muslim) in one of the TV programs several days ago.

Aktas sharply criticized Turkish Minister’s cynical statement, saying Celik insulted Christianity and should apologize to all Christians in Turkey.

This irresponsible statement proves what the Turkish Minister thinks of non-Muslims in Turkey. We fiercely criticize his attitude,” Aktas stressed.

Alevi sit-in protest to continue for 24 hours in Turkish capital

2010-10-12T04:10:00.001+03:00

A sit-in organized by an Alevi group to protest against mandatory religion classes Saturday will continue for another 24 hours in the Turkish capital, daily Hürriyet reported on its website.

Around 2,000 people took part in the sit-in protest led by the Pir Sultan Abdal Cultural Institution in Ankara's Kızılay Square, where group leaders spoke out against a Constitution-mandated "religious culture and moral knowledge" class for primary and secondary schools.
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Armenian Surb Harutyun church reopened in Istanbul

2010-10-08T17:22:00.001+03:00

On October 7, the Armenian Surb Harutyun (Holly Resurrection) Church opened in Beyoglu district of Istanbul. The church was restored by the funds of the Istanbul community of Sisli.

Armenian Deputy Patriarch of Constantinople Archbishop Aram Ateshyan and Mayor of Sisli District Mustafa Sarigul attended the ceremony.

In his speech, the Turkish official said their aim is to ensure freedom of religion of all citizens, without national, religious and cultural discrimination.

According to him, the restoration of the church cost $ 150.000.

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Turkey’s Protestants complain of state discrimination

2010-10-08T17:20:00.000+03:00

Turkey discriminates against its Protestant community and fails to take action against hate speech targeting Christians, according to a report released by a church association Wednesday.

The Association of Protestant Churches report said one problem was public perception in the predominantly Muslim but secular country that "missionaries constitute a grave national threat and must be opposed."

"The Protestant community has been labeled as 'missionaries' and has, as a result, borne the brunt of being stigmatized and denounced over the last 20 years," said the group, which says it represents 85 percent of the 100 parishes in Turkey.

The report charged that Turkish media often portrayed Protestants as "illegitimate" and turned them into a "hate object," especially by targeting missionary activities.

"It is no coincidence that physical attacks against Protestants almost always follow negative news stories about Protestants in the media. Virtually none of these incendiary broadcasts targeting Protestants has resulted in the prosecution and conviction of those responsible for the broadcast," it said.

The association charged that missionary activities were also stigmatized in school textbooks and underlined that religious classes taught at school that focused mainly on Islam posed further problems. "To obtain exemption for their children, [Protestant] families are forced to tell what religion they are.

"Further, the children are put on display and, because they belong to a different religion, may encounter exclusion, derision and insults from friends and even from some teachers," it said.

Other grievances raised in the report include "restrictive decisions" by officials and "inadequate regulations" on the use of places of worship, restrictions on public employment and obstacles to training pastors.

The Protestant community says it has a congregation of between 3,000 and 3,500. Many of them are Muslim converts. In a 2007 attack that shocked the nation, three Protestants — a German and two Turkish converts — were murdered at a Christian publishing house in the eastern city of Malatya after they were tortured for hours.

Their murder followed the 2006 killing of a Catholic priest in the northern city of Trabzon on the Black Sea coast. "Security problems have decreased significantly as a result of security measures" taken after the killings, the report said.

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Can you open a church in Turkey?

2010-10-03T21:52:00.001+03:00

Until amendments were made to the Zoning Law in 2003, it was highly debatable whether a place of worship other than a mosque could be opened or what the relevant practices and procedures to do this might be.

The relevant article of Zoning Law No. 3194 used to read as follows:

“In the development of zoning plans, the required places for mosques shall be designated, taking into account the conditions of the planned districts and regions and their future needs. Provided that the permission of the mufti is obtained and the zoning legislation is respected, mosques can be built in provinces, sub-provinces and towns. Places for mosques cannot be allocated for other purposes in violation of the zoning legislation.”

However, where it involves non-Muslims, what the law provides for, implementation takes away. This practice has been put to use in the case of regulations concerning places of worship. The zoning law amendment cited above has been rendered non-functional through the Implementation Guidelines.

Though the legal code permits it, for a variety of reasons, non-Muslims who want to open a place of worship face major obstacles. It is impossible for a church with a congregation of 30-40 persons to purchase a lot that is 2,500 meters squared and build a building on it. Further, the condition that permission be obtained from civilian authorities, because it does not include explicit criteria, is a regulation subject to arbitrary responses. In practice, municipalities have rejected requests that space be allocated and a multiplicity of bureaucratic obstructions have been encountered. Subsequent to the adoption of the amendments to the Zoning Law, dozens of applications have been submitted and denied; only a handful of applications have been successful. In theory it is possible for non-Muslims to have places of worship. In reality, this problem remains unsolved.

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Turkey: Ramifications of Upcoming Constitutional Referendum

2010-09-14T04:15:00.000+03:00

Follow the link for a good interview regarding the upcoming vote.

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German church leaders urge concessions for Christians in Turkey

2010-09-10T18:59:00.000+03:00

The president of Germany's Roman Catholic Bishops Conference has called on Muslims to do more to support religious freedom for Christians around the world, especially in Turkey, from where most German Muslims originate.

"We hope reflection on the faith will lead to the overcoming of tensions dividing Christians and Muslims," said Archbishop Robert Zollitsch. "But we should also remember the difficult situation facing Christians in the Middle East. The Catholic Church in Germany has publicly supported justified Muslim needs, and we count on Christians in Turkey soon being able to enjoy full religious freedom too."

The Archbishop sent greetings to Muslims, dated August 27, for the end of the traditional Ramadan fast in Germany. Three million mostly ethnic Turkish Muslims make up 3.5 per cent of Germany's population and are the third largest religious group after Catholics and Protestants.

At the same time, another German Catholic church leader welcomed a recent call by the Muslim head of Turkey's official religious council for Christians to be allowed to repossess a historic church at St Paul's birthplace of Tarsus.

"If this church were given back, it would be a signal for the whole world and German society in particular," Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne said in a statement.

"Members of Turkey's government have made many promises to return it which have aroused hopes and then turned out to be illusory. But our church hierarchy has never abandoned the ancient Christian principle of hoping against hope."

Christian minorities have frequently complained of discrimination and hostility in Turkey, most of whose 71.5 million inhabitants are Sunni Muslims.

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Armenia Church To Boycott Landmark Mass In Turkey

2010-09-09T14:58:00.003+03:00

Armenia's religious leaders have decided to boycott an upcoming landmark liturgy at a medieval Armenian cathedral located in southeastern Turkey because of Ankara's refusal to restore a cross on its dome, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports.

Mass will be celebrated at the 10th-century church of Surp Khach (Holy Cross) for the first time in nearly a century on September 19, three years after the church was reopened following a $1.5 million renovation funded by the Turkish government. The government has allowed Turkey's surviving Armenian Christian community to hold religious services there once a year.

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Murdered journalist Dink wins court case

2010-08-24T19:27:00.001+03:00

The European Court for Human Rights has ruled in favour of the (murdered) Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and his family. Dink filed the case almost four years ago. The Turkish state didn’t do enough to protect Dink’s life and didn’t respect Dink’s freedom of expression. The news appeared in several Turkish media outlets on Monday.

Sources say the verdict is set to be announced in September. Dink started the court case in January 2007, a week before he was killed in Istanbul by a young nationalist. Dink, who was known for his efforts to reconcile Turks and Armenians, was convicted of ‘insulting Turkishness’, and he wanted the European Court to overturn that conviction.

After his death his family went to the same court to sue the Turkish state for negligence: soon it became clear that many high-ranking police officers and security service personnel knew about the murder plans but took no action to prevent the murder. The Court heard both cases together.

The case has got a lot of renewed media attention in Turkey over the previous week. Last week the official defence sent to the Court by the Turkish state was leaked. It asserted that Dink incited hatred with his articles and referred to a case of the German state against a neo-Nazi. The comparison between Hrant Dink and a neo-Nazi angered many Turks.

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