Turkish Nationalists Accuse Church of ‘Treason’

"Kidnappers posing as police officers threaten to kill pastor."

"Izzet Altunbas, chairman of the Samsun Association of Balkan Turks and a prominent member of the local Nationalist Movement Party, publicly attacked the Agape Protestant Church in vicious terms in mid-June.

In speeches broadcast over three local TV channels on June 16, Altunbas declared that establishment of the church, officially registered as the Agape Church Association, revealed “extensive damage” to the nation in that it reflected efforts to conform to the laws of the European Union (EU).

The nationalist leader blamed Turkey’s compliance with EU legal norms for strengthening a dangerous “assimilation” drive by “Christian Europe” against both Turkish ethnicity and Islam."

“This is not a church,” Altunbas told Haber newspaper back on November 2, 2004.

“This is a center for displaying missionary activities,” he said, claiming it was an attempt “to divide our people and our government … The passion, sex and prostitution going on at Agape House is being linked with money to deceive our youth to change their religion.”

"In an attempt to intimidate Pastor Picaklar, two unidentified men posing as policemen rang his doorbell at 2 a.m. on April 3, demanding that he come with them to answer a complaint registered against him.

“I thought to myself, ‘Oh, maybe someone has thrown stones at the church again, and my telephone is out of order so the police came to inform me,’” Pastor Picaklar said. “I’d been fast asleep, so I didn’t think to ask them to show me their police IDs.”

Only after the men hustled him out of his apartment building into a minibus with blackened windows and started to drive across town did the pastor realize he had been kidnapped. When he tried to ask where they were taking him, the men began to curse and verbally abuse him. “Be quiet, you filthy scum!” one said.

Finally escorting him from the minibus into a building’s second-floor apartment, the men began to rail against him, declaring him a traitor to Turkey. “You are a Turk! Stop this. The missionaries are deceiving you and others with money!”

When he tried to explain that was not true, they shouted curses and threats at him for some 20 minutes, he said.

“They said that I had spoken against Muhammad in my last sermon, and that they had listened to it themselves,” Pastor Picaklar said.

“If, after this, you do Christian propaganda again, we will kill you,” they warned. Then they stuffed him back into the minibus and dropped him on the street about a mile from his home. The pastor was unable to see their license plate, nor could he tell in the darkness which of the city’s districts or buildings he had been taken to."

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