In an incidence of slander reminiscent of the type of media articles that appeared before the 2007 Malatya killings, journalist Banu Avar spoke aggressively against the Protestant Community in Turkey at a book fair on May 20th in Kocaeli, Turkey. In an interview at the fair, Avar stated, "There are more than 54,000 Protestant house churches in Turkey, of which you can find the greatest number in Izmit, Izmit was chosen as pilot project for this. . . . They are working to make us all Protestant."
In response to this, the local Protestant community has lodged a complaint against Avar. The actually number of Protestant Christians in all of Turkey is around 4 or 5 thousand, with the number of churches around 120. Avar also made attempts to establish links between the Protestant community and a political conspiracy. The leaders of the local Protestant Christian community are hoping to discourage this kind of discourse with the complaint. In the past, these types of articles and media coverage have only served to encourage fear and hate crimes against minority Christians in Turkey.
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