Controversial ex-priest claims to be social engineer Çınar's anti-missionary propaganda is blamed by some for the death of Italian priest Andrea Santoro, who was killed by a teenager on Feb. 5, 2006, in his church in the northern Black Sea port city of Trabzon. The murderer had he was alarmed by debates on television over missionary activities in Turkey.
The reports of Çınar's army affiliation have raised the question of whether the military did indeed pay a spy to encourage aggression against Christians in the mostly Muslim nation.
Former priest turned Muslim turns out to be military man A former Turkish priest who had been working with foreign missionaries and then converted to Islam was actually an intelligence officer with the Turkish Land Forces, a Turkish daily has reported, but he has denied acting as a "provocateur."
"Records from the Emekli Sandığı Mersin regional office show that Çınar had been registered on Aug. 16, 1992 as a 'special sergeant' with the record number of 706661XX and his premiums have been paid regularly," stated the daily.
The story indicated that the Emekli Sandığı office confirmed that Çınar is a member of the Turkish Land Forces. The Emekli Sandığı is only for public personnel and individuals who cannot pay their own premiums. Press consultant for the Association of the Turkish Protestant Churches İsa Karataş said they were not concerned about Çınar's statements as long as such statements do not put forward slanderous information about their community.
"If he is really an informant, this is not a big surprise to us. We know that our churches have been closely watched, we are not complaining about this. We want the state to know what we are really doing but we want such informants -- if there are any -- to report the truth to whatever organization they are working for," Karatas said in a written statement to Today's Zaman.
Mission Network News So while the government may claim ignorance, Open Doors' Carl Moeller says, "If they're watching such a tiny group of Christians so carefully, it's impossible that they would not also be aware of clandestine ultra-nationalists or terrorists wanting to attack them. So even though terrorist groups may be carrying out these attacks, it is with the knowledge that the government possesses, that the government is not intervening and protecting Christians."
Request for tape recordings denied in Malatya murder case At the seventh hearing of the case in Malatya on Monday, lawyers for the plaintiffs stated that Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım had said the suspects were captured as a result of audio recordings and asked that the court subpoena the records of such activities either from the Ministry of Interior or Ministry of Transportation. But the court rejected the demand on the grounds that it would not add anything beneficial to the case.
Church fights for life in its 16th court battle One of the very few legally operated Protestant churches in Turkey is fighting for its life – again. The church has battled through 15 court cases in the predominantly Muslim nation over the last 6 years, and it's about to become 16. Last week 2 police officers approached the pastor of Batikent Protestant Church in the capital city of Ankara and served him with a notice that church had 3 days to close its doors.The problem – this time – is that the church is supposedly violating zoning codes by operating in a building not approved as a place of worship.
Last year, the church faced the same charge and won their case in court against the Yenimahalle Municipal Government. The current police notice is forcing the church to battle again over a case it has already won.
The founding pastor of the church, Daniel Wickwire, told International Christian Concern, "It is very obvious that what is happening to our church is a pre-meditated, continuous and jointly orchestrated direct attack against the church as a whole in Turkey by the right-wing Islamic government (AK Party) that is currently in control."
Compass Direct News : TURKEY - MURDER SUSPECTS ACCUSE EACH OTHER IN MALATYA TRIAL All seven suspects on trial for the brutal murder of three Christians in Turkey in April 2007 appeared in court yesterday – each one protesting his innocence and incriminating one or more of the others. The hearing in eastern Turkey marked the first time the five jailed murderers and two accused accomplices have appeared together in court to be cross-examined over contradictions among their individual court testimonies. In addition to the five accused murderers – Hamit Ceker, Cuma Ozdemir, Abuzer Yildirim, Salih Gurler and Emre Gunaydin – two others, Kursat Kocadag and Mehmet Gokce, face charges as accomplices. Turkish Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske were tied up, stabbed and tortured for several hours before their throats were slit at Zirve Publishing offices. Four of the suspects have said they were afraid of Gunaydin because of his alleged connections with local police and mafia figures, coupled with his violent threats against them and their families if they tried to pull out of the plot. The court’s first attempt to untangle the defendants’ contradictions was hamstrung by Gunaydin’s refusal to answer any questions by plaintiff attorneys.
Compass Direct News : TURKEY - ALLEGED MASTERMINDS OF SLAYINGS IN MALATYA IMPLICATED Testimony taken by Malatya prosecutors last week corroborates a letter e-mailed to Turkish Protestant church leaders a year ago naming alleged perpetrators behind the savage murder of three Christians in April 2007. University researcher Ruhi Abat confirmed to prosecutors that he was in direct contact with three military officers named in the informant’s June 2007 e-mail and that gendarme officials were tracking Christian missionary activities in Malatya. Turkish Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske were tied up, beaten, tortured with knives and left with their throats slashed by five young men on April 18, 2007. Abat reportedly named Cmdr. Mehmet Ulger, Maj. Haydar Yesil and Mehmet Colak as the gendarme officials he contacted, sometimes in person and sometimes by telephone. “Abat’s statement raised questions about what kind of investigations the security and gendarme were carrying on regarding missionary activities, which are not a crime,” a Milliyet article observed.
EurasiaNet Civil Society - Theologians Take Conservative Turkish Clothing Designer to Court Two liberal theologians have taken Turkey’s most famous Islamic clothes designer to court, alleging the couturier is exploiting religion for personal profit. The case is highlighting the growing tension between Islam and the country’s market economy.
Dubbed "Allah’s tailor" by the press, Mustafa Karaduman long ago earned the odium of Turkish secularists for his successful mass-marketing of the brightly-colored headscarves and ankle-length coats that have become a trademark of conservative urban women.
But what angered the two Turkish theologians -- Ilhami Guler and Suleyman Bayraktar -- was the name of the company that Karaduman established in the 1980s. "Tekbir" refers to the core statement of Muslim belief -- "there is no God but God."
"Jesus was upset by the sight of the money-lenders in the Temple, and I’m upset by the thought of a new generation of Muslims for whom Tekbir means expensive headscarves," Guler says.
The New Nation - Internet Edition Freedom of religion and worship is one of the fundamental human rights that everyone should enjoy regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality and religious preference. The right to believe in a particular religion and practice its rituals are recognised is by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights. The 1981 UN Declaration on Religious Tolerance and Non-Discrimination and 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam also underline the significance of freedom of religion for a plural world and urge states and societies to respect and protect these basic rights.
Given the universal status of freedom of religion and freedom of worship, how can we make sense of what is happening in Turkey where wearing a headscarf is banned in universities and a number of attacks took place targeting non-Muslims?
Turkish Christians in distress - Radio Netherlands Worldwide - The State We're In Pastor Ihsan Ozbek does his best to shield his flock and his young children from the daily threats that arrive at his doorstep. Leading one of the largest congregations of the tiny Christian minority in Turkey, Ozbek has watched a troubling transformation of the relationship between his parishioners and the large Muslim majority in recent years.
A surge of religiously motivated violence has resulted in the violent murder of three church members and brazen attacks on priests and has created a general sense of isolation and trepidation amongst Turkish Christians. This has been compounded by a growing nationalist sentiment in Turkish society that Christians seek to undermine the nation's sovereignty by promoting a faith that is seen by many as Western.
Secular Turks attack religious council's code for women | World news | The Guardian A powerful state body regulating the role of Islam in Turkey has come under fire over an article on sexual behaviour that equated flirting with adultery and condemned women for wearing perfume.
Secularists and women's groups hit out after the directorate of religious affairs (Diyanet) published the article on its website setting out recommendations for proper sexual conduct.
Invoking the prophet Muhammad, it put the onus squarely on women by urging them to cover up and behave modestly to avoid provoking male sexual desires.
"Women have to be more careful, since they have stimulants," the article stated. "The women communicating with strange men should speak in a manner that will not arouse suspicion in one's heart and in such seriousness and dignity that they will not let the opposite party misunderstand them, that they should not show their ornaments and figure and that they should cover in a fine manner."
On the use of perfume, it continued: "His highness the prophet Muhammad did not think kindly of women who put on perfumes outside their homes and go strolling and saw this as immoral behaviour."
The article said women and men should not be alone together unless married and questioned the role of females in mixed-gender workplaces. It blamed "social and moral" decline in the west for the legalisation of abortion.
The article was widely condemned in the pro-secular media. Yusuf Kanli, a columnist in the English-language Turkish Daily News, said it reflected a "very primitive mindset", adding: "Is this mentality at all different with that of the Taliban that placed Afghan women behind chadors?"
Powered by ScribeFire.
Mission Network News Bible correspondence courses have a long history of success in Turkey, and the Internet is increasing their impact.
AMG International made contact with almost 20,000 people through newspapers and the Internet in 2007, and a record 450,000 different people visited the its correspondence course website in Turkey. An article on the website titled “What should I do to become a Christian?” was read more than 17,000 times.
Visitors to the website may also chat one-on-one with a Christian chat operator. This ministry provides personal explanations of the Gospel to visitors, some of whom decide to become Christians or get baptized. Over 2,000 chat conversations took place in 2007.
Powered by ScribeFire.
