TURKEY DETAINS 5 MORE IN CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY SLAYING
By Amberin Zaman
Voice of America
April 19 2007
Police in Turkey have detained five more suspects in connection with
an attack against a Christian publishing house in the conservative
eastern city of Malatya. Three employees were killed Wednesday by
knife-wielding assailants, who reportedly said they were acting to
protect Islam. From Istanbul, Amberin Zaman reports for the VOA.
Malatya Governor Halil Ibrahim Dasoz, 19 Apr 2007 Governor Halil
Ibrahim Dasoz says police have arrested five more suspects, doubling
the number of people detained in connection with the attack on the
Zirve publishing house. The publisher distributes bibles and publishes
Christian material.
Dasoz told reporters that no links have been established between
the alleged killers and illegal Islamic groups. The three victims,
two Turkish citizens who were converts to Christianity and a German
Protestant, were found bound to chairs with their throats slit.
Turkish police officers detain a suspect following attack on a
publishing house in Malatya, southeastern Turkey, 18 Apr 2007 Turkish
media said the suspects were mainly students who lived at a hostel
run by an Islamic foundation.
Wednesday’s killings drew sharp protests from EU governments that
have long criticized Turkey over discrimination against non-Muslim
and non-Turkish minorities.
Last year, an Italian Catholic priest was shot dead by an
ultra-nationalist teenager in the Black Sea city of Trabzon. In
January, an ethnic-Armenian news editor, Hrant Dink, was gunned down
by a teenager in Istanbul, raising fears of a concerted campaign
against the country’s tiny Christian community.
The Chairman of Turkey’s Protestant Churches’ Union, Bedri Peker,
told a news conference anti-Christian sentiment has been fostered by
Turkey’s nationalist education system and encouraged by politicians
and the media.
Peker added that Turkey’s Christians have the right to worship freely
and spread their faith through peaceful means, but they are regarded
as what he called "spies and enemies of the state."
Ihsan Ozbek, the pastor of the Ankara-based Kurtulus Church that has
received many anonymous threats, told VOA in a telephone interview
that he blames the murders on a climate of intolerance towards
Christians. He added that no government official outside Malatya has
contacted church officials to offer condolences.
Turkey’s government, led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a
former Islamist, has expressed concern over the spread of Christian
missionary activity in Turkey. Mehmet Aydin, minister of state in
charge of religious affairs, has called missionaries "separatist
and destructive."
There are mounting worries among pro-secular Turks that Mr. Erdogan
will make a bid for the presidency when the incumbent Ahmet Necdet
Sezer steps down in May. Throughout his seven-year term, Mr Sezer,
a former judge, blocked government moves he viewed as a threat to
the secular tenets laid down by the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk.
Mr. Erdogan has not yet announced his intentions, but he has pledged
to remain faithful to Ataturk’s legacy.