“Hrant was our Sacrifice as Well”

Hetq Online

The Armenian community of Istanbul is the most isolated when it comes to relations with the Republic of Armenia. The Armenians of Turkey hardly feel the presence of Armenia in whatever sector you wish to name. However, the Armenians in Istanbul and in the hundreds of residences throughout Western Armenia have remained Armenian, even without knowing the language, converting to the Muslim faith, changing their names and surnames and professing to be of another nationality.

The number of working Armenian churches in Istanbul today stands at 36. However, the number of those attending religious services decreases yearly. On any given Sunday, one would be hard-pressed to see a large number of young people at church.

Scary article published this morning in Turkey

All citizens except non-Muslims - Turkish Daily News Aug 02, 2008

While the substance of the nation is Islam, it is forbidden right from the start to speak up about it. And that is certainly the origin of our chronic schizophrenia vis-a-vis secularism

As the central feature of the nation-building process, the Islamic religion excludes the followers of other beliefs and thus considers them anti-nationals. In this sense, the Armenian, the Greek and the Jew are the innate "others" of the nation, its natural adversaries. Since the creation of the Turkish nation, non-Muslims had no place in citizenship, but non-Turkish Muslims have theirs as long as they turn Turkish and overlook their identities of origin.

The religious root of the nation does not disturb the secular individual, quite the contrary. In this context, the Christian missionary is a common enemy. He/she is dangerous for the Muslim's religion and the secular's nation. The conversion of a Muslim fatally hurts the nation as much as the Muslim congregation. Although there is no problem in the country with Muslim missionary activity that converts others into Islam and hence "Turkifies" them, the Christian missionary presents a clear lethal threat.

Let's take the assassination of Father Santoro or the Zirve publishing house massacre in the city of Malatya. Didn't one of the perpetrators involved in the Malatya case answer, "They are Christians, we are Turks," to the attorney's question of what he meant by "they" while he was talking about protestant missionaries? All these people, including the murder suspect of the slain Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, disclose an arrogant tranquility after the completion of a noble religious/national duty. Ali Koç, one of the attorneys involved in the Malatya case, says, "The office of the prosecutor is trying to legitimize the case more than they are trying to unveil it." That is to say, to eliminate a missionary is almost an obligation for a Muslim in order to save the religion and the nation.

The time of Saint Paul – Apostle to the Nations

Sunday - Catholic Magazine

In the Church we have begun the Year of St Paul, which will last till 29 June 2009. We are facing a very important time, a wide-angle reflection on Christianity, which was enormously influenced by St Paul. What we read about this Apostle in the Acts and in his Letters, which are an extraordinary theological work, interpretation of God’s Revelation, testifies to the fact that we can hardly imagine the Church and Christianity without the teaching of St Paul. The Year of St Paul is a good occasion to look at the work of evangelisation. This disciple of Christ took to heart Christ’s calling to apostleship. Throughout centuries he has been an example of missionary involvement, which resulted from his absolute love for Christ. We constantly draw from St Paul; we base our teaching on his theology and take him as a model of evangelizer.

Turkey's church-state fracture

Turkey's church-state fracture - NJ.com

Particularly since 9/11, the West has liked to see Turkey as a symbol of what a democratic Islamic country might look like. Lately that ideal seems threatened by clashes between Turkey's secular and Islamist factions that are a sobering reminder that the church-state separation -- in countries where religion has ruled -- is no easy thing.

Bombing widens division in Turkey

Mission Network News

Deadly twin blasts in Turkey this weekend heightened insecurities over the secular-religious rift.

SAT-7's David Harder says partner TURK-7 feels the pressure. "Turkey is in a very tense time. The ruling political party is on trial right now to prove that it should exist. It's a very complicated scenario. Nobody knows how it will play out. That is a big threat in the background to the stability of the country."

The Constitutional court's decision could shut down the Justice and Development Party's government for alleged Islamism. Doing away with it would fly in the face of the nationalist thinking that ‘"o be Turkish is to be Muslim, and to be Muslim is to be Turkish."

Analysts think any changes to the 85-year-old system could trigger months of political upheaval. Already, the rumblings can be felt in the streets. Add to that the shock of the terror attacks, and the tensions go up even higher.

Christians are often singled out in times of sectarian violence. While the Turkish constitution includes freedom of religion, worship services are only permitted in "buildings created for this purpose," and officials have restricted the construction of buildings for minority religions.

The few who dare to profess Christ face harassment, threats and prison. Evangelism is difficult. According to a 2007 report from I.N. Network, a ministry working in the country, the number of believers reportedly declined from 22% to only .2% between 1900 and 2000, and most of these Christians are non-Turkish.

Even so, the TURK-7 team shares the hope of Christ through programs produced in Istanbul.

Turkey uses religion to lure tourists

Turkey uses religion to lure tourists - The National Newspaper

Forget about sun, beaches and all-inclusive hotels. The hottest travel trend in Turkey is religious tourism, as such sites as the house of Mary, mother of Jesus, the church of the original Santa Claus and the ancient hometown of St Paul are attracting a growing number of visitors.

Although Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country today, many important events in Christian history and tradition took place in Anatolia, a heritage that authorities and tour operators have identified as a source for additional visitors and revenue.

“These are different tourists from those you find in [beach hotels in] Antalya,” said Fugen Kolsal, the owner of Oktogon Tourism, a travel agency in Istanbul that specialises in “biblical tours” and other offers for visitors interested in the history of early Christianity. “They are older, more conservative, they are open for the country and its people, they have more money, and they reach places where normal tourists will never go.”

A Religious Tourism Project, conducted by Turkey’s tourism ministry, aims to “increase the number of visitors to important centres” of religious history, most of which are connected to Christianity, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Turkish Minister Discusses Status of Religious Freedoms

Turkish Minister Discusses Status of Religious Freedoms

Foreign Minister Ali Babacan once more reaffirmed his support for the remarks he made at the European Parliament last May and said that there were serious problems in Turkey regarding freedoms.

"Some of them have been solved, but there are still many problems to be solved in coming days," Babacan told the private NTV channel.

Replying a question on the status of religious freedoms in Turkey at the external relations committee of the European Parliament in May, Babacan said that not only non-Muslim minorities in Turkey had problems regarding religious freedoms but the Muslim majority experienced similar problems as well.

Turkey Authorities "Supported" Murders Of Christians, Trial Observers Claim

Turkey Authorities "Supported" Murders Of Christians, Trial Observers Claim | Turkey | Europe

Netherlands-based Open Doors, a group investigating the plight of reportedly persecuted Christians, said it has learned that a key witness, Metin Dogan, has told a court that at least four influential politicians and officials were involved in killing German Tilman Ekkehart Geske and Turks Necati Aydin, and Ugur Yuksel.

The three Christian workers were found in April last year, tied up and their throats slit.

Dogan said he was approached by ultranationalist movement Ulku Ocaklari to carry out the murders with a knife. “If it’s done with a gun, it cannot be arranged with the police,” he was reportedly told. The movements chairman, Burhan Coskun, allegedly promised Dogan to provide two assistents who he was to kill after murdering the Christians.

ALLEGED MASTERMINDS OF MALATYA MURDERS NAMED IN COURT

Compass Direct News : TURKEY - ALLEGED MASTERMINDS OF MALATYA MURDERS NAMED IN COURT

Despite new court testimony naming a web of ranking local officials behind the slaughter of three Christians in Malatya last year, defense lawyers for the alleged murderers attempted to turn last week’s hearing into an investigation into Christian missionary activities.

The defense also pursued a line of questioning linked to a farfetched conspiracy theory, based on the murderers’ claims that the Malatya office of Zirve Publishing Co. was secretly linked to the illegal Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist group.

But the firsthand testimony of a prosecution witness claiming to know personally the instigators of the deadly plot dominated Friday’s (July 4) hearing, with plaintiff lawyers concluding this put them “one step further” in unraveling the case.

Playing to rising anti-Christian sentiments in 99 percent Muslim Turkey, the murderers’ attorneys peppered four of the six witnesses testifying at hearing with probing questions about their personal religious beliefs and involvement in Christian activities.

“Don’t bother with the murders, tell us about missionary work!” shouted a sarcastic headline on the front page of Taraf newspaper the morning after the trial.

It was the eighth hearing in the case, trying five murder suspects caught at the scene and two accomplices for the April 18, 2007 murders of Turkish Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske in a Christian publishing office in southeastern Turkey.

Although the presiding judge accepted most plaintiff objections to irrelevant defense questions, the day-long hearing was punctuated by recurring, heated shouting matches across the courtroom between the two ranks of attorneys.

Turkish Government Denies Water to Church in Ankara

Turkish officials continue harassing legal church in an attempt to force it to close

The Turkish government is now attempting to shut down the Batikent Protestant Church in Ankara by shutting off the church building's water supply.

On June 18th an official from the government office of the Ankara Department of Water came with an order to take out the water meter from the Batikent Protestant Church. The reason cited in the order to remove the water meter was because of alleged unpaid water bills dated between Aug 27, 2007 and June 6, 2008. However, between 2005 and 2007 the Batikent Protestant Church won several court decisions granting them the right to have free water from the Government.

In Turkey, the government gives mosques free water. However, Turkey's constitution is based on secularism, and thus it seems logical that whatever rights a mosque may have to free water should be afforded to churches as well. Accordingly, in 2002, when Pastor Daniel Wickwire founded the Batikent Protestant Church of Ankara for Turkish-speaking Christians, he applied to the Municipal Government of Ankara asking for free water.

This request for free water was denied by the local government, so Wickwire and the church's Turkish Pastor Ali Pekta? opened a series of court cases going all the way up to the Supreme Court where they eventually won the right for the church to have free water. Not only did they win the right to have free water provided to the church, but the Supreme Court ordered the Ankara Department of Water to repay all of the water bills the church had paid since it opened.

Despite the Supreme Court's ruling, the Turkish government has refused to repay the church for their previous bills and continued to harass them by sending water bills and attempting to remove their water meter on 10 different occasions. Twice this left the church without water, and the water was turned on only after the church paid the water bills that it did not rightfully owe.

ICC reported on a different attempt by the government to shut down Batikent Protestant Church in a press release earlier this month on June 10. On June 2, police delivered a government order to shut down the church in three days because it was in violation of the zoning code. However, the church had already won a court case on this same issue. Yet again, they have been forced to open another expensive counter court case in order to stop its impending closure.

The opposition faced by Batikent Protestant Church is part of a wider problem. The present government of Turkey has been enacting new laws designed to close down existing churches and make it difficult to open new ones.

Jeremy Sewall, Policy Analyst at ICC, said, "Adding to its human rights violations, the government of Turkey is also lacking in creativity. They could at least invent a different pretense to try to shut the church down than ones that it has already lost. For the government to completely disregard its own court decisions reveals either an impotent court system or a deeply conflicted political struggle within Turkey. Either way, their decision to childishly harass Batikent Protestant Church is an embarrassment to their country."

CHARGE OF ‘INSULTING TURKISHNESS’ QUESTIONED

Compass Direct News : TURKEY - CHARGE OF ‘INSULTING TURKISHNESS’ QUESTIONED

Twenty months after two Turkish Christians went on trial for allegedly “insulting Turkishness and Islam,” a local criminal court has requested a Justice Ministry review of one of three charges in the case. On Tuesday (June 24), Silivri Criminal Court Judge Mehmet Ali Ozcan ordered a review of the two Christian converts’ alleged violations of the controversial Article 301 of the Turkish penal code. Accused of spreading Christianity by illegal methods, Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal were charged in October 2006 under Turkey’s Article 301 for denigrating “Turkishness.” Regardless of the Justice Ministry decision on the Article 301 charges against Tastan and Topal, the Silivri court will continue its prosecution of the case under the other two charges: reviling Islam and compiling information files on private citizens. Oddly, both teenage witnesses for the prosecution testified that they did not know the defendants and had never even seen them before facing them in the courtroom on Tuesday. “Neither the defendants nor anyone else has tried to approach me with propaganda about the Christian religion, and no one has given me written or visual materials,” 18-year-old Emin Demirci told the court.

In Turkey, Bitter Feud Has Roots in History

In Turkey, Bitter Feud Has Roots in History - NYTimes.com

As Turkey’s governing party braces for a high court ruling that could close it down and bar many of its members from politics, party officials like to talk about what they did that caused so much trouble.
“Watch out, you’re talking to a sinner,” said Sadullah Ergin, an official in the party, Justice and Development, whose founders, some of them former Islamists, now want Turkey to be a more open society for practicing Muslims.

Mr. Ergin’s offense, detailed in a more than 160-page indictment of the party and its officials that has paralyzed Turkish politics since it was filed in March, was saying that a ban on women wearing head scarves in universities violated human rights, adding his signature to a draft law that helped cancel it and talking about it on a television talk show.

Most of all, his crime lay in his association with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of the party, known as A. K., the initials of its Turkish name. With its control of the presidency, the Parliament and the government, the faction has come further than any other in modern Turkey in breaking the grip of the secular establishment on power.

The indictment accuses the party of trying to turn Turkey, a secular democracy, into an Islamic state, a charge that Mr. Ergin contends is “political, not legal.”

Even Turkey’s liberals, who would be among the first to speak out against Islamic activism in government, agree with that assessment. Many see the case as the last stand by Turkey’s secular old guard — a powerful class that includes the military and judiciary — that is against the ropes and trying desperately to hang on to power. The military’s attempt to stare down Mr. Erdogan last year led to a pro-A. K. retaliation at the ballot boxes, and now it has turned to its judicial allies to try to stop Mr. Erdogan. A ruling by the constitutional court is expected in the next few months.

“They are playing their last game,” said Baskin Oran, a professor of international relations at Ankara University. “The military is no longer able to make coups. The last line to hold onto is the constitutional court.”

'Good Muslims' should listen to top cleric

'Good Muslims' should listen to top cleric - Turkish Daily News Jun 18, 2008

Recently, we were forcefully reminded that we all must love Atatürk -- or we face prosecution and must stand trial. Insult and blasphemy can always be discussed, but “loving/not loving someone no matter who he is” should be a matter in which the state should not get involved, especially in the form of lawsuits and prison sentences.

That "someone" can be Atatürk or Prophet Mohammed. In democracies people should have a right to chose whom to love or not love, including the founder of the state or a prophet.

The truth is, if we are talking about democracy and civil liberties everyone should be able to express love or hate for the founder of the state, the state, the monarch if there is one, the prime minister, the president, the chief of general staff, the Pope and even a prophet – "holiness" cannot give religion immunity against "people not loving it." Avoiding forceful conversion of non-Muslims or atheists into Islam is one of the virtues of the religion of Mohammed.

Prosecuting someone because she does not love Atatürk is so amusingly childish. And so is the Kemalist columnist who writes that “… the prosecution is stupid but the girl who does not love Atatürk must be insane.” Just like someone who does not love Atatürk should not be prosecuted, s/he cannot be humiliated as an "Islamist loony." Sadly, the Turks, regardless of which side of today's ideological division line they belong to, are centuries away from the basic notion of tolerance. In fact, that sharp division is only driving them away from tolerance./blockquote>

Turkish Pastor Facing Jail On "False" Charges

Turkish Pastor Facing Jail On "False" Charges | Turkey | Europe

Pastor Orhan Piçaklar of the Samsun Agape Church in the Black Sea coastal city of Samsun found a notice Sunday, June 15, notifying him that he was a suspect in a court case and requiring him to come immediately to give testimony, said US-based advocacy group International Christian Concern (ICC) with Website www.persecution.org.

When he arrived at the public prosecutor’s office the pastor apparently discovered that charges against him had been hand-written and included a false identity number. When he asked the prosecutor why he had opened a case on this basis, he was allegedly told: “Because there are crazy people around.”

ICC said the "vague remark" probably means "that the prosecutor is trying to save his own skin from Muslim radicals who would target him if he was seen to be 'soft' on Christians."

There was no immediate comment from the prosecutors office. ICC said the anonymous accuser, using a hidden camera, had also taken pictures of a baptism and a wedding blessing ceremony at the church. Charges against him included "Insulting the prophet of Islam, Mohammed", "Insulting the police" and "Performing a marriage ceremony in the church," ICC said, citing the hand-written letter.

PASTOR DENIES

Piçaklar has denied the charges, saying that never insulted anyone "because the New Testament commands Christians to respect all people." In addition, he reportedly said that he didn't perform a marriage ceremony, but only a "celebration and blessing of a couple who were already married."

ICC said it fears the pastor could receive jail time for these charges, although it was not immediately clear how much time the prosecutor is asking for him to serve. In published remarks, Piçaklar said, "I am not afraid as for the Lord in everything I can do everything. But please pray for my family because they will be in desperate straits if anything happens to me." He reportedly added that he believes, "The Lord will not allow them to be left alone, because the Lord here is daily growing His church, Satan is restless and creating problems.

Church ordered to shut down in Turkey

Church ordered to shut down in Turkey (OneNewsNow.com)

A church in Turkey's capitol city of Ankara is facing more legal persecution from the government.



The Batikent Protestant Church has been served notice that it will have to shut down soon -- which presents an odd set of circumstances. Jeremy Sewell, a policy analyst for International Christian Concern, says the church has already fought many legal battles to exist.

"The church has won this right by fighting approximately 15 different court cases, many of which have gone to the Supreme Court of Turkey over the past six years," he conveys.

Yet the latest lawsuit involves the same issues. Turkey's government is secular, and there is a constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. Sewell says it is shocking that the Turkish government "... [w]ould be so blatant in their violation of religious freedom when the courts have already ruled that this church is legal and can stay open."