Tuesday, July 03, 2007

TURKEY - CONVERTS SUBJECTED TO OFFICIAL HARASSMENT

"In a bizarre twist in the criminal prosecution of two Turkish Christians for “insulting Turkish identity,” an administrative district authority in Istanbul has ordered the converts from Islam fined for “illegal collection of funds.”

Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal, on trial for insulting Turkishness under the nation’s notorious Article 301, were summoned to Istanbul’s Beyoglu police headquarters on Sunday morning (July 1) just before church services began at the Taksim Protestant Church, where Tastan is a member."

"The two Christians were both presented with a separate “penalty” sheet from the security police division linked to the Beyoglu district, ordering each one to pay 600 Turkish lira (US$461) for breaking a civil law.

According to the one-page decisions, the two men were guilty of violating section 29 of civil administrative code 2860, which forbids the collection of money without official permission from local district authorities.

Evidence of the alleged misdemeanor, the forms noted, was in the hands of the gendarme headquarters in Silivri, 45 miles west of Istanbul, site of the two Christians’ trial. The men were shown no documents or alleged evidence of the accusations against them.

“What is this? Just more harassment,” Topal told Compass. Both he and Tastan have been subjected to surveillance and even secret filming by Turkish gendarme and police authorities over the past year.

“This is ridiculous,” the men’s attorney, Haydar Polat, told Compass today. “It has nothing whatever to do with the original case against my clients. Now we will have to open a case against this administrative order within 15 days, and it will take at least a year to get these unsubstantiated charges dropped.”
Compass Direct News : TURKEY - CONVERTS SUBJECTED TO OFFICIAL HARASSMENT

No comments: