Forced Islamisation of Armenians raises questions about today's Turkey

Turks are getting ready for a hot election in March when they will cast their ballot to elect a new parliament and, for the first time, a new president. Almost certainly, Sunni ethics will certainly inform the debate. Not much coverage has gone to a conference held in early November on the forced islamisation of Armenians before and after the 1915 genocide.

Organised by Istanbul's Boğaziçi University and the Hrant Dink Foundation, which is named after Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, the editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos. He was assassinated in 2007 by Turkish nationalists with the tolerance of elements within the Turkish state.

Although some 600 people from around the world attended the conference, the Turkish media failed to give the event the attention it deserved.

In their presentations, various speakers noted that forced Islamisation was not visited only on individual children and women survivors but on entire families forced to convert in order to survive in the new Turkey born out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.

The founding of the new Turkish Republic was premised on the policies of Islamisation and genocide pursued by the Young Turks and the Committee of Union and Progress. This occurred after Armenian members of the Young Turks and the Committee split from ethnic Turks in 1913.

Based on various reports, the goal of the Committee of Union and Progress in 1915 was to reduce the Armenian population (5 to 10 per cent of the empire's population) where it had its strongest and oldest roots - the central, southern and eastern regions of the Ottoman Empire - since its aim was to establish a new Turkey that would be Sunni Muslim. Even Kemal Ataturk, founder of Turkey's so-called secular republic, appealed to Muslim solidarity to consolidate his power. In short, a real Turk was a Muslim Turk.

Not surprisingly, after the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians known as Karamanlis were uprooted from Anatolia and sent to Greece.

Turkish historian Taner Akçam, who teaches at Clark University in the United States, is one of the foremost specialist on the Armenian Genocide. In his address, he spoke of 200,000 Islamised Armenians, noting that the assets of the genocide victims went to the Turks.

Overall, historians focused on a very important issue. Because of forced islamisation, millions of Turks have ties to the Armenian and/or Christian communities. Some call them 'crypto-Armenians' or 'crypto-Christians;.

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Tulsa physician with roots in Turkey sells Christian movies

Tulsa physician Enis Sakirgil opened a store last month in south Tulsa that sells Christian and family movies on Blu-ray and DVD. 

"Jesus was always talking in parables that would bring images into people's minds. Movies are the parables of today," he said. 

His store and the online video sales business that supports it are the most recent expressions of a family faith that extends back for centuries. 

Sakirgil was born and raised in Antioch, Turkey, one of the centers of the early church, and a city where the followers of Jesus were first called Christians. 

He comes from an Eastern Orthodox family in a land where Christianity once flourished but which now is 99 percent Muslim. 

Sakirgil said he became a born-again Christian when he was a medical student attending a church founded by American missionaries in Istanbul. 

He was attracted to the church because the services were in Turkish, his native tongue, and not in Arabic, like the church in which he was raised. 

He became a worship leader in the church and founded the first-ever Christian rock band in Turkey, he said. 

During his medical residency in Turkey, he heard about In His Image, a Christian family-practice residency program in Tulsa. He could not get the idea of attending the residency program out of his mind, he said.
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Fish Flix

Turkey drops a screen over Christianity

TRABZON, TURKEY

Many of Turkey’s historic monuments have followed the same path through the centuries: Byzantine church to Ottoman mosque to secular museum. This July, the 13th-century Hagia Sophia church in the eastern city of Trabzon added a new phase: return to mosque.

While the conversion of this Hagia Sophia – not the more famous structure by the same name in Istanbul – to a house of Muslim worship reflects the increasingly religious approach of Turkey's government, the impact on the tourism industry has been buffered by an uptick in foreign visitors from the Middle East, who are largely disinterested in the traditional tourist landmarks.  

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Hüseyin Buyuk, a local working for the Historic Hagia Sophia Association, ushered visitors through the divided entrance. Local Muslim worshipers went to the right, removing their shoes before stepping onto the red carpet inside, where large white screens shield Christian icons from their eyes, while non-Muslim tourists went to the left, following an uncarpeted passageway behind the screens to gaze upon bright frescoes depicting Christ. 

From 1964 until December 2012, Trabzon’s Hagia Sophia functioned as a museum. But after a court ruling that, in the legacy of Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II, the building was rightfully a mosque, the Turkish Ministry of Culture was evicted. On July 5, the late-Byzantine church reopened as a mosque in time for the first Friday prayer of Ramadan.

“It has always been a house of worship,” Mr. Buyuk says, supporting the court ruling. “We already have a cultural museum.” 

The Hagia Sophia was the second such museum to be converted recently – Iznik’s Hagia Sophia was reopened as a mosque in July 2012 – and it may not be the last. The conservative opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) introduced a bill Nov. 8 to resume Muslim prayer in Istanbul’s famed 4th-century basilica, Hagia Sophia, first converted to a museum in 1935.

Dr. Şükrü Yarcan, a tourism specialist at Nisantasi University, says the restoration of Muslim prayer in historical sites like Trabzon’s Hagia Sophia is unlikely to stop non-Muslim tourists from visiting them, but it contributes to foreign impressions that the country is growing more religious, particularly in more distant regions like North America and East Asia. 

“They might think that Turkey is going to be an Islamic country and they might refrain from coming,” said Yarcan. “They might have an image of Turkey as a negative one.”

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Turkish pastor arrested on human trafficking accusations

A Turkish Protestant pastor arrested by police in the Black Sea province of Samsun this week is accused of involvement in prostitution and the human trafficking of refugees.

Pastor Orhan Picaklar of the Samsun Agape Church was summoned to local police headquarters for questioning on Monday afternoon (November 11).

The 42-year-old pastor was detained until Wednesday evening in a police investigation led by the Morals Bureau of the Public Order Division. The criminal case was reportedly based on a telephoned complaint from an unidentified person.

“It is obviously a deliberate plot,” a spokesperson from the Alliance of Protestant Churches in Turkey told World Watch Monitor, saying that Picaklar had been harassed for years by local media and city authorities who openly opposed the church’s existence.

While in detention with seven other individuals, Picaklar learned they were all being named as suspects in the same “human trafficking operation”.

“I hadn’t ever seen any of them, and none of them knew me either!” Picaklar told World Watch Monitor.

But the Turkish press was quick to trumpet the pastor’s arrest for the next two days, before Picaklar was finally brought to testify before the prosecutor on Wednesday afternoon.

A former Muslim who converted to Christianity 21 years ago, Picaklar has pastored the Samsun Agape Church since 2003. The congregation was granted formal “association” status in 2005, although like other new Christian congregations in Turkey, it is still prohibited by law from official government recognition as a church.

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Why Are 700 Greeks Praying In a Turkish Hotel?

There is a small town on Turkey’s western Aegean coast, called Ayvalik. On Sept. 29, a striking photo from this town hit the newspapers. A local hotel was hosting a religious service, attended by 700 clerics who came from various Greek islands.

Those familiar with the historic tensions between Turkey and Greece could assume that the clerics prayed in Ayvalik in a show of defiance. The actual story, however, is quite different, offering a good perspective of how much religious freedom non-Muslims enjoy in Turkey.

The clerics had in fact come to Ayvalik to hold a religious service at the local Taxiarchis Orthodox Church. But as they failed to obtain the “required” permission from the authorities, they had to make a last-minute arrangement and pray at a hotel.

Let’s see how things unfolded, as reported in the Taraf daily: “When the governor’s office denied them permission for a service at the Taxiarchis Church in Ayvalik, the 700 Greeks decided to book the conference hall of a hotel. The service, held in the conference hall of the Halic Park Hotel in Ayvalik, was attended by a total of 700 people, including 400 from the island of Lesbos and 300 from Athens, Crete and elsewhere. The Greek consul in Izmir, Theodore Tsakiris, a parliament member from Lesbos and the Orhomenos mayor also attended the service. A member of the Greek Orthodox community in Turkey, who requested anonymity, told Taraf : ‘Back in April, we applied to hold a service at the Taxiarchis Church on Sept. 29. We waited six months for a reply. The rejection came only three days before the scheduled service date. Why did they wait for six months? We believe they did so deliberately. Concerts are being organized in the church where we want to pray. It is hard to understand why our religious service becomes a problem while concerts are allowed to be held in the church.”

The Taraf story contains also the following information: “The Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul applied to the governor’s office in April for a permission for a religious service on Sept. 29 at the Taxiarchis Church, which has a ‘museum’ status. The governor’s office, in turn, sought an approval from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The ministry rejected the request on the grounds that ‘the Taxiarchis Church does not figure in the 2000 catalogue of churches where religious services could be held.’”

You may already be confused. Why has a church become a museum? Why does worshipping in a church require the permission of administrative authorities? Why do Greek clerics hold prayers in Turkey?

Let’s start with the last question. The Greek Orthodox patriarchate in Istanbul is an ecumenical patriarchate, according to the title it uses. The title signifies a declaration that the ecumenical patriarch is the spiritual leader of all Orthodox Christians in the world, just as the pope is for Catholics. Even though some Orthodox churches do not recognize the patriarch’s authority, many others around the world accept the patriarchate in Istanbul as their universal spiritual leadership.

Turkey, however, refuses to recognize the patriarchate’s ecumenical title. Officially, the patriarchate is considered to be the religious institution of the Greek community in Istanbul, which has today dwindled to 3,000 people.

Since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power, restrictions on the patriarchate have been eased to a certain degree, but measures that would meet the genuine needs of the institution have never materialized. A decision to reopen the Halki Theological School was removed at the last minute from the democratization package that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan unveiled on Monday, Sept. 30. The seminary is vital for raising future patriarchs.

This brief explanation should have made it clear why 700 Orthodox Greeks would come to Turkey for a religious service. They did so on the call of their spiritual leader to pray in a church which is historically theirs.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/10/turkey-greek-orthodox-patriarchate-restrictions-churches.html#ixzz2ggXhdGhs

Could Turkey’s Christians Wear Police Uniforms?

 Even though no such rule exists on the books, it so happens that not even one single non-Muslim army officer, policeman or judge exists in Turkey. Non-Muslims are absent not only from the security and judiciary establishment but from the public sector altogether. Why? Is it because of their small numbers?

Turkey’s non-Muslim population today is estimated at about 100,000. According to figures by the London-based Minority Rights Group International, it includes 23,000 Jews, 3,000 Greeks, 60,000 Armenians and 15,000 Syriacs. In addition, there are Turkish converts to Protestant Christianity, estimated to number between 3,000 and 5,000.

Could it be a coincidence that none of those 100,000-plus people are public servants? In an Aug. 8 article for Al-Monitor, I wrote about how non-Muslims are marked with secret codes in the birth registers. This practice became public knowledge by mere chance earlier this year when a woman, who applied to enroll her child in an Armenian school, received a reply from the Education Ministry which revealed that birth registration offices have been using ancestry codes to secretly mark citizens of Greek, Armenian, Jewish and Syriac origin.

In any other country, such revelation would have sparked a huge outcry and long occupied the public agenda, but in Turkey it merited only short-lived media coverage before being forgotten. The coding practice, in fact, provides an indirect explanation of why non-Muslims fail to become public servants in Turkey, since birth registration offices appear to keep records of ethnic and religious origins even after people change names or convert, almost like a permanent “criminal record.” The practice suggests that whenever a non-Muslim applies to become a police or army officer, the “secret” information in birth registries instantly flows to the related institutions.

The veto that non-Muslims face in the public sector came under the spotlight again this week through an intriguing incident. The spiritual leader of Turkey’s Syriacs, acting Patriarch Yusuf Cetin, gave an interview to the Milliyet daily, in which he questioned why “people of other faiths are not assigned posts in public administration, the military and the police.”

The directorate-general of police responded in a message on its official Twitter feed: “Mr. Yusuf Cetin, the Istanbul Metropolitan of the Syrian Orthodox Church, has made remarks asking why Syriac citizens are absent from the police department. All citizens of the Turkish Republic, regardless of religion, race and sect, are able to become police officers. We invite our Syriac citizens, too, to enter the exams of the police department and become police officers.”

The Hurriyet Daily News reported that representatives of Turkey’s non-Muslim communities greeted the message with skepticism. They stressed that the problem cannot be resolved with just an appeal and that the discrimination non-Muslims face in the public sector under unwritten rules cannot be eradicated overnight.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/10/turkey-urges-christians-join-police.html?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=23327&utm_campaign=0#ixzz2i0a5pYNH

Monastery Land Returned

Turkish authorities decided the return of the lands of the historic Mor Gabriel Monastery to the Syriac community in Turkey, as local media report. The Assembly of Foundations, the decision-making body of the Directorate General of Foundations, approved to return land to the Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation on Monday.

The Director General of the Directorate General of Foundations, Adnan Erdem, said the assembly unanimously approved the decision to return the land adding that this decision means the biggest land return during the republican history of Turkey. Mor Gabriel is a 1,700-year-old historic monastery located in the southeastern province of Mardin's Midyat district. In 2008, the Forestry Ministry, the Land Registry Cadaster Office and the villages of Yayvantepe, Candarli and Eglence sued the monastery for allegedly occupying their fields.

The lawsuit was finalized last year, recognizing the monastery as an "occupier." The case was then brought to the European Court of Human Rights. "The land of the Mor Gabriel Monastery will return to the monastery's foundation," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised last week, while declaring a wide range of reforms on democracy.

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Church bells ringing again

For almost a century, the bells of St. Giragos, a magnificent 14th-century church built of sturdy black basalt bricks, were silent.

Severely damaged during the 1915 massacre and deportation of local Christians, it stood roofless and abandoned for decades, a poignant reminder of the void left by the killing of its congregants.

Yet for several months now the tolling of bells can once again be heard emanating from the belfry and echoing through the city’s narrow alleyways and busy markets.

St. Giragos recently underwent an extensive $3 million dollar restoration that included a new roof, the reconstruction of all seven of its original altars—a unique feature for a church, which usually has just one—and the return of an iron bell to its belfry.

“Right now the bells are just symbolic,” said Arahim Demirciyen, an ethnic Armenian who rings the bells twice a day. “A priest is currently in training in the Armenian quarter in Jerusalem. When he finishes and arrives here we can also start holding regular weekly services.”

The reopening of what church officials say is the largest Armenian place of worship in southeastern Turkey is part of a re-evaluation by Kurdish Muslims of the active role their ancestors played in the killings of minorities including Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and Jews in the twilight years of the Ottoman Empire.

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Promised legal reforms disappoint Turkey’s religious minorities

The Turkish government’s long-awaited “democratisation package” of reform laws announced this week has met with considerable disappointment among Turkey’s minority religious communities.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan revealed on Monday (September 30) a broad array of reform laws, drafted by his ruling Justice and Development Party for parliamentary debate and approval.

Although public focus remained on legal changes in the Kurdish resolution process, electoral reform and lifting the headscarf ban in public offices, there were some positive, if symbolic, steps affecting the nation’s non-Muslim communities.

But without question, the religious minorities were expecting more tangible changes to correct their status as second-class citizens: most prominently, the re-opening of the Orthodox Church’s Halki Seminary, along with recognition of the Alevis as a distinct faith community.

“There are positive aspects, but also there are important steps missing,” Laki Vingas told Today’s Zaman after Erdogan’s speech. A member of the Greek Orthodox community, Vingas represents non-Muslim foundations on the council of the Directorate General of Foundations under the prime minister’s office.

“The package in its entirety is positive, but there is nothing about Alevis,” Radikal columnist Yetvart Danziyan noted.

The Alevi community, estimated at 20 per cent of the Turkish population, is denied official recognition as a distinct faith community from the Sunni Muslim majority. As a result, Alevi cemevis (places of worship) are refused the state upkeep and tax exemptions granted to all Sunni mosques, Alevi dedes (religious leaders) are ineligible for the state salaries paid to Sunni imams, and basic Alevi beliefs are excluded from the required religion courses in all public schools.

Danziyan also observed, “The failure to open the [Halki] theological school has caused disappointment not only among the Greek community, but all minority groups.”
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Transformation of Hagia Sofia into a mosque challenges the entire Christian world

The famous Hagia Sofia Church in Istanbul may become a mosque again. An official request has already been submitted to the authorities. If it’s satisfied, the Christian world will lose one of its important symbols and a new wave of islamization along with the persecution of Christians will start in Turkey, according to experts.

Built in the middle of the 4th century, Hagia Sofia or Santa Sofia was an active mosque once. It was after the Fall of Constantinople in the 15th century. Only in 1935, thanks to the policy of religious and ethnic tolerance carried out by a founder and the Republic of Turkey’s first President, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, one of the largest Christian churches in the world was transformed into a museum. It was included as a World Heritage Site on the UNESCO list in the late 1980s.

Calls for permission to hold prayers in the church have been repeatedly voiced over the last few years. However, they were ignored. Now Turkish politicians use is it in their political games trying to create public opinion, Stanislav Tarasov, the head of the Middle East-Caucasus Centre of the International Institute of the Newest States, believes:

“There are certain political circles which call for the transformation of the Christian church into a mosque, challenging the entire Christian world this way. They want to reduce global events happening in the Middle East to a conflict of civilizations.”

The Istanbul Hagia Sofia is not the first among Turkey’s Christian churches which became a target for some politicians who deliberately try to make a religious center out of it. In spite of repeated calls of Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople to return relics to the Christian world, churches in Nicaea and Trebizond (present day Iznik and Trabzon) were transformed into mosques. They were museums, just like Hagia Sofia, only a while ago. Soon Salat will be held in the oldest monument of Byzantine architecture – the Monastery of Stoudios. It’s a very disturbing tendency,” Tarasov believes.

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Armenian church on Akdamar Island hosts first baptism in 98 years

Armenians from Turkey and around the world have descended on Akdamar (Akhtamar in Armenian) Island on Lake Van for an annual Divine Liturgy on the island’s 10th-century church, which was reopened to occasional prayer in 2010 after a hiatus of close to 100 years.

Turkish authorities restored the church between 2005 and 2007 before opening it as a museum. The Divine Liturgy was celebrated there for the first time in 95 years in 2010.  This year, a baptism took place during the service in the historical church.
“During our religious service, we will pray for our country’s peace, unity and solidarity. There was no empty seats at the service four years ago, but as time passed, the number of attendees decreased. Nearly a thousand people have participated this year, unlike previous years’ thousands. For the first time in 100 years, we will have a baptism inside the church. I would like to take this occasion to thank our governor, the security forces and the mayor,” Ateşyan said.

Worshippers prayed for peace in the Middle East and in the world during the service.
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After 12 years, Turkey closes the door on American church volunteer

 After 12 years serving a church in Turkey voluntarily and peacefully, Jerry Mattix suddenly is on the country's blacklist.

Officially, the government has deemed Mattix a threat to national security. Yet the police have told him he is "welcome" to apply for a visa.

Such is the perplexing state of affairs in Turkey's southeast province of Diyarbakir, where Mattix and several other once-welcome Christian foreigners have become personae non gratae.

In April and June, Turkey denied Mattix, a U.S. citizen, a religious-worker visa. When he and his family tried June 7 to re-enter the country, they were turned away.

He and his family had lived in Diyarbakir for over a decade, helping the local church. Mattix also has authored several books, in Turkish, explaining Christianity.

"What exactly they cite as my crime that is so threatening to national security I do not know," Mattix told World Watch Monitor from the United Kingdom, "but I can only guess that it has to do with the fact that I have been serving the local Turkish churches all these years."

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Trabzonspor coach reads Bible to empathize with foreign players

Turkish football club Trabzonspor’s coach said he began reading the Bible for “a better communication” with his team’s foreigner players.

“I will find the way to reach my players’ hearts, I have been dealing with the Bible for the last six weeks. I’m spending my time on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and trying to understand with which perspective they look at the life, what sort of faith and love they have... That’s why I believe that my connection with them will not be so hard,” Mustafa Akçay said in a press conference on June 27.
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Istanbul pastor shows hope to protesters

While protesters and police furiously clash in Istanbul, a pastor there is quietly continuing his ministry.

Nicholas* lives and works in Taksim, the epicenter of the increasingly violent encounters of recent days in Istanbul, Turkey's largest city. In the most recent clashes, tear gas invaded Nicholas' home, forcing his children to abandon their bedrooms and sleep in the living room where it was bearable.

Despite the turmoil, Nicholas said he and his family are not afraid. He is concerned about the uncertainty of the future of Turkey but believes it is a blessing to lead a church so close to the action.

"It is important that the church continue normally and demonstrate our faith," he said. "God is the ultimate authority to whom we submit."

Nicholas said he believes his nervous neighbors need to see the peace that is evident among followers of Christ. On Father's Day, Nicholas led 30 people in a subdued worship service despite the brewing threat of violence on the street.

Refusing to be distracted by the events swirling around him, Nicholas said, "Our mission is beyond this neighborhood and really beyond this world."

He said he admires the passion of the protesters who flocked to Istanbul's Gezi Park, but he sees a lack of clear purpose and goals. That is a sharp contrast to his mission of sharing the real hope that comes from having a personal relationship with God, he said.

A few days earlier, Gezi Park had been the site of tens of thousands of protesters singing, dancing and drinking in defiance of the prime minister. That party is clearly over; driven out of the park by the police, the protesters have fled and taken to the streets. In addition to being battered and shaken, they are angry and defiant, demanding a change in the country's leadership. To the protesters, Nicholas says, "Ultimately we find our confidence in God."

There is a growing fear among Christians in Turkey, but Nicholas said there is always something to fear because Christians live in a broken world.

"Every day there is something to fear -- tear gas, cancer, flu and other illness," he said.

But Christians shouldn't overcome fear, he explained, by "self-righteousness or willpower." Victory over fear, Nicholas said, only comes from God.

"If we live life in fear and depression, we've stopped living," he said.

The church will continue on as it always has, because there needs to be a place for people to hear the Gospel. "There are many more dangerous places in the world where our brothers and sisters in Christ meet faithfully," Nicholas said.

Nicholas asks for prayer for Turkey's leaders to rule with wisdom and justice. For the citizens of Turkey, he prays they would discover the true hope that can be found in God.
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Some Turkish protesters, even non-Christians, light candles to St. Anthony

Before taking part in demonstrations in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, “many young people” visit Istanbul’s largest Roman Catholic parish to light a candle to St. Anthony, according to the parish’s pastor.    “They are people of all social classes and religions,” said Father Anton Bulai. “As Franciscans, in this delicate moment for the country we pray, through the intercession of St. Anthony, for the good and peace in the country.”
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Turkey: What to Know and How to Pray

Turkey has been in the news. It's been all over the front page and protests have made international news.

Some are speculating it is "on the brink." Considering how the Arab Spring has played out for many Christians, such movements are of particular concern to Christians. At this point, these protests are directed at the government, which has been leading the country in a more Islamist direction, so the protests are a bit more complicated and involve several issues.

So What is Turkey?

Many people outside of the region are unfamiliar with Turkey and the Turks. If you know your Bible, you've heard of places like Ephesus, Smyrna, Laodicea. If you know church history, you've heard of places like Nicaea.

That's Turkey now.

As a matter of fact, all of the seven ecumenical councils took place in Turkey.

If there was a Bible belt over 1,500 years ago, it was in Turkey. However, that changed with the rise of Islam and its eventual conquest of the region. Then, a few centuries later, the area would be at the heart of one of the world's most powerful empires, the Islamic Ottoman Empire.

After the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey took a road less traveled among majority Islamic nations—it leaned toward Europe rather than the Middle East.

Turkey has more recently been seen as a moderate Muslim country, though some (including the current President) reject that terminology, and there are troubling signs for the future.

For example, Turkey was recently added to the list of countries violating religious freedom, though not without debate.

However, anyone who has been there knows that Turkey is decidedly different from the rest of the Muslim-majority world.

 

Turkey matters for international relations—many have looked to Turkey as a model for the future. Its politics and foreign relations are different than much of the Muslim world. For example, although relationships have been tense lately, the historic relationship of Turkey and Israel is an open secret. But, it also is one of the few places in the majority-Muslim world where Christians can and do share their faith (though not without challenge).

How Can We Pray

So, how can you pray? Well, I will share how I am praying.

I'm praying:

1. That the protests geared toward the government will lead the people away from increased Islamization and to greater religious freedom.
2. For the safety of "workers" serving there right now.
3. For the safety of Turks and for a just end to the violence.
4. That Turks in Turkey (and the 75 million Turks around the world) will turn to Christ in the midst of the tumult.

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Who Owns Turkey’s Mosques?

Good article discussing the complex situation religious institutions face with regards to property ownership:

The Turkish Court of Cassation, a high court before which ordinary court decisions can be appealed, has recently engaged in an interesting discussion in connection with cases of thefts from mosques. The discussion was on the question whether the mosques are public property or just places of worship. The qualification of the crime would be changed according to the legal qualification of the mosques. The high court finally concluded that mosques are just places of worship.

This discussion is proof that there is confusion in even the minds of minds about the status of mosques in Turkey. This is because the state’s control of religion in Turkey is so strict that the status of mosques may appear controversial. All imams in Turkey are civil servants, and they are appointed to these mosques by the Religious Affairs Directorate, which is operating under the authority of the prime minister's office.

The high court finally decided that mosques are places of worship, not public property. But it did not provide an answer to who are the owners of Turkey’s 80,000 mosques. These mosques are governed by civil servants appointed by the Religious Affairs Directorate, with some of the mosques belonging to foundations and associations, while others belong to the treasury.

Turkey does not recognize religious communities, neither grants legal personality to their religious institutions. In other words, mosques and churches are not recognized as such. Namely, mosques are the mosques of the Religious Affairs Directorate or they belong to an association or foundation. Mosques, churches and their congregations are not recognized as legal entities. Instead, the Religious Affairs Directorate, foundations and associations represent them legally.

There is a tremendous gap in the field of religious affairs. Turkey, to be a democratic country, must recognize religious communities and their institutions in its constitutions and laws. Then, it must pass a law concerning religious institutions that will govern the relations and needs of religious groups. This law should further regulate such matters like establishing places of worship, recruiting staff, training clerics, collecting donations, holding meetings and ceremonies, running training courses, acquiring property and building care facilities for the elderly. The criteria for recognizing places of worship should be objective, like the number of attendants; it should not be up to the state to decide whether a cemevi or Buddhist temple is a place of worship or not. Likewise, Turkey should stop meddling with the internal affairs of the patriarchates of non-Muslims, and constitutional and legal guarantees should be provided to these institutions.

In short, when it comes to freedom of religion, Turkey has a very long way to go.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/turkey-mosque-ownership.html#ixzz2Tv0Agq5H

Religious freedom in ‘Islamist’ Turkey

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a body created by the American Congress, has just launched its annual report.

“For the last several years Turkey has implemented a number of reforms to begin to rectify many of the longstanding restrictions on the country’s diverse religious communities. These new policies and initiatives, which relate to returning expropriated minority properties, loosening the ban on headscarves, and issues related to textbook reforms and increased educational opportunities, among others, indicate that Turkey is moving in a positive direction with regard to religious freedom.”

It is notable that the report also contrasts this “positive direction” of Turkey with the older attitude:

“In the name of Turkish secularism, the government has long restricted religious minority communities’ ability to own, maintain, and transfer both communal and individual property, to control internal governance, and to train clergy. However, the AK [Justice and Development] Party recently has begun to reverse many of these restrictive policies, actions which the minorities generally view as positive.”

The report goes into detail and notes how the ancient regime (under Atatürk in the ‘30s, and “Atatürkist” generals in the ‘70s) had oppressed minorities:

“For many years, successive Turkish governments expropriated properties from religious minority and Muslim communities, including schools, businesses, hospitals, orphanages, and cemeteries. Most of the confiscations occurred during three distinct periods of time: first, in 1936, with the passage of the Foundations Law; second, in 1971, when the Private University Law required that all private colleges (including theological schools) be affiliated with state-run-universities; and third, in 1974, when non-Muslim communities were forbidden from owning properties other than those registered in 1936.”

“However,” the report adds, “in recent years other religious groups, including Protestants and Roman Catholics, have been permitted to register foundations.”

The report is right to note that there still are problems in Turkey, issues such as rightful demands of the Alevis, the much-delayed re-opening of the Halki Seminary of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, or societal intolerance to diversity. The struggle for freedom should go on, in other words. It just should not be misunderstood.

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New Church Vandalized in Istanbul

In Istanbul, in the district of Atasehir, a new Church was vandalized on Sunday.  A group of around 30-40 people came to the church and threw rocks and eggs at the building, breaking several windows.  Only one church member was there to see the attack, and the group's identity remains a mystery.  The police arrived shortly afterwards and have launched an investigation to determine who is responsible.  The group also destroyed decorations at the entrance, which had been prepared for the church's grand opening the week before.  Reporters spoke with one of the Church's elders and he made the following statement, "Our Church only just opened last week and we weren't here to disturb anyone, but only to live at peace with everyone and to share God's Word with people as well as minister to the believers in the Messiah, who live in this area."

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Minister calls on Christian and Jewish minorities to return to Turkey

Christian and Jewish minorities who have left Turkey can come back to their home country as the mistakes of the past will not be committed again, said Culture and Tourism Minister Ömer Çelik during his visit to the Russian capital, Moscow, March 16.

“If you encounter troubles anywhere in the world, know that the first place you can appeal to is the Turkish embassy. Turkey has become a democracy that protects every identity and their historical legacies,” he said, adding that minorities had faced many problems in the past. “Turkish democracy now gathers in itself every identity.”

Çelik added that the same care was shown in the restoration of mosques, churches and synagogues. He also mentioned that the Taksim Barracks, known as Topçu Kışlası, which are planned to be restored in the near future, had marks of Russian architecture. “[As the Justice and Development Party] we consider the traces left from the Russians in Anatolia as historical legacies,” he said. 
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Bold words, but it remains to be seen what the reality will be in the future. Restoration to historical churches is taking place, but permission is not being granted for the use of these buildings, nor is permission being granted for new church buildings.

Turkey to permit religious headscarves

Turkey's labor minister said he will work to remove a ban on women's religious headscarves in government buildings. 

Faruk Celik said he received a petition with 12.3 million signatures demanding the headscarf ban be lifted and calling for Muslim women -- many of whom believe the scarves to be a religious commandment -- to be free to dress as they please, Hurriyet Daily News said Saturday. "I am convinced that this process will lead to enhanced social peace and harmony -- and will be a key ingredient for the normalization process," Celik said. 

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed, noting no such ban on headscarves exists in the nation's constitution.Read more:

Protestants and Mor Gabriel on agenda at Merkel’s visit

Mor Gabriel Monastery and the Malatya Zirve Publishing House Massacre were among the main agenda topics during talks in Ankara on Feb. 25, in which German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with various spiritual leaders. Fener Greek Patriarch Bartholomew, Acting Patriarch Archbishop Aram Ateşyan, Chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva, Syriac Mor Gabriel Monastery’s Metropolitan Archbishop Samuel Aktaş, the Turkish Syriac Catholic Deputy Patriarch Chorepiscopus Yusuf Sağ, and Ümit Şahin, Protestant Churches Association General Secretary and Coordinator of the Association’s Committee on Religious Freedom, were present in the meeting, which was held in the Official Residence of the Prime Ministry. “We at least saw that the state values and accepts us on legitimate grounds. We hope to be a part of the dialogue process from now on,” Ümit Şahin said. Şahin also said they mostly focused on the Zirve massacre case and the problems Suzanna Geske – the wife of massacre victim Tillman Geske – faced regarding her Turkish citizenship, excluding religion boxes on ID cards, and various issues concerning the church building. “Geske’s application for Turkish citizenship was rejected, and she appealed it for the second time. The Prime Minister told his advisors to deal with the matter,” Şahin said. Three missionaries – German citizen Tillman Geske and two Turks, Necati Aydın and Uğur Yüksel – were tied up and tortured before their throats were slit at the Zirve Publishing House, a Christian publisher in the eastern province of Malatya, on April 18, 2007. Link

American priest applying for indefinite visa fined for working illegally

A Protestant church in the southeastern province ofDiyarbakır has been fined after authorities determined that its priest had been working illegally when he applied for an indefinite visa despite having already served the parish for 10 years, daily Habertürk reported Feb. 16. 
 
Jeremiah Ian Mattix has been living in Turkey with a tourist visa since 2003 and requested an indefinite visa because he is a religious functionary, according to the report. 

Following his application, police officers determined that he was presiding over services, as well as teaching for the church. Based on police officers’ complaints, inspectors from the Turkish Labor Institution (İŞKUR) came to Diyarbakır to assess Mattix’s case. 

The church was ultimately fined 6,795 Turkish Liras ($3,850) while Mattix was fined 670 liras ($380) for working illegally.

Ahmet Güvener, president of the association of Diyarbakır’s Protestant Church, objected to the decision, saying the church was in a difficult economic situation. 

“As there isn’t a priest to educate our community in the Christian faith, the Protestant Church in the United States has voluntarily appointed Mattix. We don’t pay any salary to Mattix who is one of the executives of our association,” Güvener told Habertürk, adding that Mattix should be designated a religious functionary, just as imams working inEurope are.
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Progress and setbacks for Protestants in Turkey

Turkey's Protestant Christian population has registered important advances in recent years even as they continue to grapple with negative stereotypes and perceived restrictions on their freedom of worship, religious leaders told SES Türkiye.

Behnan Konutgan, pastor of Eminonu Immanuel Protestant Church in Istanbul, said church authorities constructively worked with the government on several issues in 2012.

"Upon the invitation of Turkish education authorities, we launched in 2012 a comprehensive project on the possibility of Christian students being given lessons on Christianity," he told SES Türkiye.

A committee representing Protestant churches in Turkey is preparing textbooks and curricula to support this effort. The work is expected to be finalised this year.

Authorities also allowed religious celebrations in public areas.

"Last Christmas, we submitted a request to the governorate to celebrate the holiday in the streets of Istanbul's Kadikoy district, which was quickly approved. We're pleased that there was no single attempt to attack or disturb us," Konutgan said. "We distributed flowers to the people we saw in the neighbourhood and walked around singing carols."

Protestants were also invited to parliament's constitutional committee last year to express their opinions on the draft under preparation.

But amid signs of progress, a new report by the Association of Protestant Churches in Turkey said violent attacks on their members and places of worship continue, listing 10 hate crime incidents in 2012.

Hate crimes became a national focus following a series of deadly attacks on Christians in 2007. The interior ministry subsequently issued a decree calling on local authorities to increase measures to protect non-Muslim populations from violence and promote social tolerance.

Umut Sahin, general secretary of Association of Protestant Churches, told SES Türkiye that conditions improved after 2007, only to turn for the worst in later years.

"Between the period 2008-2010, there was a relative decline in hate crimes towards our community, as a result of the democratisation wave especially," he said.

"However, starting from 2010, the increase of terrorist attacks in the southeast pushed the Turkish state and society into anxiety, leading to an increase in intolerance against the Protestant community."

Sahin added that an inability to identify individuals responsible for attacks in 2012 led to an "uncontrolled and unchecked spread of hate crimes."

Mine Yildirim, doctoral candidate at the Finland-based AAbo Akademi Institute for Human Rights, who helped prepare the new report, said many hate crime cases end without thorough investigation.

"In many instances, people who have been attacked forgive the guilty person or withdraw their complaint. And police forces tend to consider these cases as individual ones, underestimating the need for a comprehensive look at what's behind them," she told SES Türkiye.
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Turkey's Christians Could Face Nationalist Backlash

Religion was kept out of the public square for centuries in Turkey, but the country has become more Islamic with the "Islamic-oriented" AKP government in power for a decade. Turkish nationalists, who believe in secularism—and are the main persecutors of Christians—have become more active out of their disappointment, and could turn their anger toward religious minorities.

Historically, Turkey has welcomed Westernization, imbibed a secular mindset, seen itself as more European than Middle-Eastern, and completely banned religion from the public square, keeping it firmly under state control.

However, thanks to the government of the Justice and Development Party, locally known as the AKP, which came to power in 2002, the nation now sees itself as more Middle-Eastern than European, and considers other Muslim countries as brother nations. The AKP, presently in its third consecutive term, has been gradually contributing to Turkey's new Islamic political ethos.

As a result, Turkey now embodies a unique blend of Western ways and Islamist politics not seen anywhere else in the world.

The influence of Islam in the political sphere has not been welcomed by Turkish nationalists who, though they think only Muslims can be Turks, believe in secularism. For them, being Muslim is about identity and not faith. The nationalists have, therefore, become more active, which jeopardizes the security of Christians, mainly the Protestants.

Turkish nationalists see non-Muslim minorities as a threat to national security. So much so, that a Turkish atheist is less of a problem than a Turkish Christian, which they consider to be an oxymoron.

A report titled "Human Rights Violations Report 2012" by the Association of Protestant Churches in Turkey, records at least 10 major attacks on Protestant Christians and churches in the year.

In April 2012, four young men threatened a church leader with statements like, "This is a Muslim neighborhood, what business does a church have here? Unless you recite the Muslim creed we will kill you." They hit him and then fled the area.

Throughout the year, a church official in the city of Izmir faced verbal threats and egg attacks from youths in his neighborhood. Finally, after he was threatened with a gun, the church threatened to take legal action. Under pressure from neighborhood leaders and family members, the young men apologized and the church withdrew its threat of complaint.

Last February, a church building in the city of Samsun was vandalized. The man was quickly identified and apprehended. When he confessed, the church retracted its complaint and he was released. It should be noted that this kind of discrimination is commonplace in the region.

The 2012 report was, however, soft on the AKP government and noted some improvements on the side of the authorities.

After years of persecution, the AKP government holds more promise for religious freedom than its secular and more nationalist, predecessors, the report indicated. Although bureaucratic hurdles still remain, it is now easy to open houses of worship. The state has even offered either compensation for, or the return of property that had earlier been confiscated from non-Muslim community foundations.

In 2012, work began on the possibility of Christian students being given lessons on Christianity. The textbooks and curriculum are being prepared with the help of local congregations. The Protestant community was invited to the Constitution Reconciliation Committee, and was granted the opportunity to give their opinions about the new constitution being written. There were no places of worship closed in 2012, even though one facility used for worship received a closure notice.

However, responses of the international community to the AKP government's moves need to be cautious, given that increased Islamization can eventually threaten the well-being of the religious minorities.

Besides, the AKP's new reforms, while some of them were positive, are not enough to guarantee protection for religious minorities from hyper-nationalists who continue to see Christians as a threat to Turkish identity and security. Their discontentment is rising with the new direction that the nation is taking under the AKP leadership. As they become more insecure about the future, Christians in Turkey might also become more vulnerable to anti-religious reactions.

As Turkey tries to find its voice as a secular nation ruled by religious Muslims, it will need to amend its understanding of secularism to be more inclusive and less nationalistic. It will need to protect the religious freedom of all faith communities from the backlash of secular nationalists by granting them legal rights, status and protection. The future of Turkey looks to be unlike anything in its history, but today it needs to give its people the freedom to choose their religion without being seen as a threat to the Turkish identity.

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Assyrian Monastery in Turkey Becomes Shelter for Syrian Refugees

Syriac [Assyrian] refugees escaping clashes in Syria are temporarily taking shelter in Mardin's Deyrülzafaran Monastery before finding a way to a third country, the metropolitan bishop for Diyabakır and Mardin, Saliba Özmen, has told the Daily News.

Deyrülzafaran Monastery is the first Syriac foundation in Turkey to welcome the Syriac refugees, who have been avoiding refugee camps over security concerns.

The Syriac Union Party, Syriac National Council and Turkey Syriac Associations Federation members have recently conducted meetings with Ankara officials, including officials from the prime ministry, Özmen said, adding that Ankara agreed to provide support.

"We told them of our limited resources and we asked for financial support. Ankara promised to help and will soon begin providing financial support," Özmen said.

Hospitals have also offered to help the monastery with the increasing number of incoming refugees, with the governor's office working with health service officials to provide assistance.

There is no current need for a camp, according to Özmen, as those who arrive in Turkey then move to countries where they have relatives. "We don't have the numbers for a camp, and we don't need one currently."

Turkey Syriac Associations Federation head Evgil Türker said they will continue to maintain contact with the Mardin Governorship to help refugees.

Syria reportedly has around 300,000 Syriacs within its borders.

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85-year-old Christian Woman in Turkey Repeatedly Stabbed

MARISSA Kucuk was a little old Armenian lady who lived on her own in Samatya, a picturesque neighbourhood of Istanbul where Christians and Muslims used to rub along peacefully. On December 28th Ms Kucuk, 85, was found dead in her apartment. She had been stabbed, repeatedly. Relatives said a crucifix was carved onto her naked corpse.

Last week, a masked assailant attacked another elderly Armenian as she was entering her apartment. He punched her in the head. When she fell to the ground he began kicking her. "My mother's mouth was filled with blood…the neighbours came to the rescue when she screamed for help and the man fled," Maryam Yelegen, told AGOS, a Turkish Armenian weekly.

The attack marks the fifth in the past two months against elderly Armenian women (one has lost an eye). All of the attacks took place in Samatya, which is home to some 8,000 Armenians and the seat of the Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate. Opinion remains divided as to whether these are organised hate crimes targeting non-Muslims or just random theft. Istanbul's governor, Huseyin Avni Mutlu, insists that it was the latter. "The incident was inspired by robbery, there were no racial motives. Be sure we will find the perpetrators. Good night," he tweeted to some 100,000 followers.

Some of the victims were, indeed, robbed. The Turkish police are said to be concentrating their investigation on a man in his thirties as a potential suspect. Turkey's Human Rights Association remains unswayed. "The attacks were carried out with racist motives," it concluded in a report that was published last week.

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Planned church assassination might signal further attacks

One person was arrested last week in Kocaeli on charges of planning an attack on the İzmit Protestant Church to assassinate its pastor following a round of detentions in the town shortly after the Kocaeli Police foiled the alleged plot, which has brought fears that an illegal group behind many attacks on non-Muslims in 2006 and 2007 is currently highly active.

The discovery is not only very important because it prevented a potential attack, but also shows that groups looking to trigger a coup d’état and who have planned and carried out attacks in the past against non-Muslims as part of a larger plan against the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government are still operating.

Not everybody agrees that the recent threats directed at the İzmit church necessarily mean that Ergenekon extensions are making a comeback. Ziya Meral, a London-based Turkish analyst and academic told Sunday’s Zaman in an e-mail interview: “It is not clear whether these individuals are part of a larger network that carried out similar attacks on non-Muslims in the 2003-2008 period. It might well be that this is a local independent initiative.” He said, however, that he did not find the threats surprising, noting: “Last year, there were various false reports in local media that the İzmit area was a target for missionary activities and there were thousands of secret churches in the city. Sadly, years of scapegoating non-Muslims in Turkey and paranoia over activities of non-Muslims continue unchallenged by the courts or the state. It was only a matter of time for various ultranationalist groups to be incited to act on such dangerous media reports and statements by public officials.” He said the role of the overall atmosphere could not possibly be ignored: “While attacks against non-Muslims in Turkey stopped overnight in 2008 when deep-state trials and arrests began, we are seeing a dangerous comeback of attacks and sinister media reporting. This might well be signs of a new play by groups seeking to create unrest, or it might well be the automatic outcome of years of social manipulation through psychological warfare. In other words, this attack might not be directly led by the deep state, but it carries the marks of what they started and sustained.”

But it is clear as day now that past atrocities against non-Muslims, such as the Wealth Tax of the ‘30s, the deportation of Jews in Thrace and the pogroms against Greek Orthodox residents of İstanbul in 1955, the Dink murder, the murder of Father Santoro in Trabzon and the Zirve murders are parts of a long-running campaign by shady groups, says Cemal Uşak, a journalist and writer who is the vice president of the Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV). He said he agreed that recent, almost simultaneous, acts targeting non-Muslims do create the impression that they are part of the same plan and a continuation of it. “Certainly, the judiciary will have the last word on this, but the developments don’t leave us much room to think of this in any other way.” He also noted that a culture of hate that allows viewing one’s fellow citizens as if they are an enemy has been engrained in the subconscious of some segments. “Heinous social engineering can make murderers from this subculture. Ogün Samast [Dink’s shooter] is an example. In the long term, what we should fight is this culture of hate.”

The İzmit Police Department’s counterterrorism unit was monitoring a group in the Çukurbağ neighborhood of İzmit, following the emergence of intelligence indicating that they were gathering information on the İzmit Protestant Church and its İzmit representative, Emre Karaeli. After a lengthy period of surveillance, police conducted an operation to take the suspects into custody on Jan 15. Twelve suspects were detained in the provinces of Kocaeli, Şanlıurfa and Diyarbakır in connection with the group. Six were released; six others were referred to the İstanbul Prosecutor’s Office, while one was arrested by the court and placed in prison.

Speaking about the discovery, Kocaeli Governor Ercan Topaca said the governor’s office has been monitoring the church to ensure the safety of the congregation. He said an attack was planned to take place during a four-day church event between Jan. 17 and Jan. 21. He said the fact that 12 people came together to gather intelligence, make observations about the church and plan the attack is an organized criminal activity.

İstanbul Protestant Church Foundation İzmit representative Emre Karaali said his church’s door was open to everyone. “We don’t ID people who come to the church or do any other kind of questioning.” He said the police work that led to the operation started about a year ago, when he reported receiving threats. Karaali also said there had previously never been threats directed at the church or any of its officials. The church has been active in Kocaeli for 14 years.

He also said there were some he knew among the suspects, saying these were individuals who attended church services and meetings from time to time. “Some of them told us they were Christians. Two of these suspects I know personally. They have played with my kids, spent time with my family, we have broken bread together. What I find odd here is this: Outside, many people might hold biases against us without knowing anything about us at all. Two of the suspects were people we knew, and never ever suspected.” He also thanked the security forces for their good work.

He said his church only sought to serve people trying to live according to their beliefs. “They say everyone thinks of the other in terms of who they are. We have never held any ill will towards anyone, and we don’t think ill thoughts about people. We believe the sincerity of those people who come here. What we are doing here in the end is serving people in the best way we can to help their relationship with God. In this respect, we don’t eye people suspiciously or with worry. Our door is open to anyone who wants to sincerely live their faith, or learn about our faith.”
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Zirve killers planned Bible publisher murders well in advance

The brutal massacre of three Christian missionaries who operated the Zirve Publishing House in the city of Malatya in 2007 was planned well ahead of time and in a highly calculated manner, documents found on a computer belonging to a suspect in the killings have revealed.

Police have found a large number of documents that serve as evidence of how the murders were premeditated over a long period of time on a computer seized from the house of gendarmerie intelligence officer Maj. Haydar Yeşil -- one of the suspects in the Zirve trial. The hard drive of the computer includes video footage of the victims, phone conversation recordings belonging to them and a chart that details the organizational structure of Christian missionaries in Malatya.

Victims Necati Aydın and Tilman Geske, a German citizen, had been tagged by the criminal network months prior to the murder, the documents on the computer show. In addition to Geske and Aydın, there is detailed information, complete with pictures and video recordings, of US citizen Ronal Lolgal and Zirve publishing employee Hüseyin Yelki. These individuals were shown on a document supposedly revealing a “missionary organization chart,” created inside the gendarmerie. Some of the photographs found on the hard disk are from Geske's funeral. The killers also had a list of missionaries residing in Turkey with personal information such as their passport numbers and detailed information about their families and residential addresses. Police have established that the documents were created by different members of the Gendarmerie Command in Malatya.

The documents confirm the assertion of co-plaintiff lawyers in the trial that began four years ago that the gendarmerie was actively involved in the killings. The murders are believed to be part of a general plot targeting missionaries, devised either by Ergenekon -- a clandestine gang charged with plotting to overthrow the government -- or a related organization. Evidence that came out in the trials regarding the 2007 murder of journalist Hrant Dink, the 2006 killing of Father Santoro, an Italian pastor, in Trabzon and other attacks on non-Muslims shows that they are also likely to have come from the same master plan. Prosecutors and lawyers in these trials have found evidence linking these events to each other.

Another police finding was that there was a briefing on the slain missionaries at the Malatya Provincial Gendarmerie Command where a slide presentation was used. During the briefing at the gendarmerie command, detailed information and intelligence work conducted in the city on the missionaries was also given to the gendarmerie officials.

Prosecutors believe that the campaign against missionaries in Malatya and other parts of Turkey was launched by a clandestine and illegal unit called the National Strategies and Operations Department of Turkey (TUSHAD), allegedly established in 1993 by former four-star Gen. Hurşit Tolon, who is one of the key suspects in the Ergenekon trial. Last week, the Malatya court hearing the Zirve trial ordered Tolon's arrest based on the evidence found on the computer at Yeşil's office.

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Assassination bid on Kocaeli pastor foiled

Police in Kocaeli have prevented an alleged assassination attempt against Emre Karaali, the northwestern province’s only known Protestant pastor, detaining 12 men and seizing a number of weapons.

Karaali said the police confiscated guns, detailed records of his daily routine, a schedule of religious ceremonies, as well as a layout of the İzmit Protestant Church and his house, in a recent raid against suspected assailants. Six of the detained were released on Jan. 18, while the remaining six were testifying in court when the Daily News went to print.

“Some of the detainees periodically used to come to our services, and some others were not familiar at all. Police told me that people in this organization had ties with another city and someone from another country, but they did not name them,” Karaali told the Daily News on Jan. 18 over the phone.

Karaali said he had been receiving threats over the phone for nearly a year. The İzmit Protestant Church was founded as the first church in the city in 1999, the same year a massive earthquake killed 40,000 in Kocaeli, whose administrative center is İzmit.

Some locals had criticized the church at the beginning, accusing it of missionary intentions.

The church was preparing for four days of celebrations between Jan. 17 and 21 and had invited top local officials in the city before the plot was revealed.

On Jan. 15, local daily Çağdaş Kocaeli had criticized the church for “overrating” the event’s announcement.

“Many citizens who did not even know that there was a church in İzmit until yesterday, found out about the existence of the İzmit Protestant Church after leaflets were delivered to buildings and postboxes. It is not known how many members this mentioned church has, but the event was announced in the leaflets day by day,” the daily said in an anonymously published announcement, adding that some locals had become “annoyed” by the leaflets.

The report also accused the church of missionary activity and of aiming to detach local youth from Islam and bring them toward Christianity.

Zeynep Kübra Özçiçek, the daily’s managing editor, said her paper had made no attempt to target the church or Protestants but had only sought to convey that their readers were irritated.

“Our readers asked us to take the local mufti’s opinion. … The mufti did not make any comment, but invitations were sent to all the local brass in the city; this was not ordinary,” Özçiçek told the Daily News on Jan. 18.

Karaali, who has been living in İzmit since 2009, said he had never had any problems with locals but noted that ultranationalist writer Banu Avar had alleged on May 20, 2012, during a book fair in the city that İzmit had been chosen as a “pilot city by Christians to make Turks Protestants.” The comments were subsequently published in many papers, as well as the Kocaeli Municipality’s website.

Karaali said they filed a criminal complaint, but the court found Avar not guilty. Similar incidents occurred before the Zirve Publishing House massacre in Malatya in 2007, Karaali said.

Although the church was founded 14 years ago, the İzmit Protestant Church has only 20 members, Karaali said.

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