Baptist Press, TN
Nov 3 2006

2 converts in Turkey charged under free speech restrictions
Nov 3, 2006
By Staff
Baptist Press

ISTANBUL, Turkey (BP)–A Turkish prosecutor has filed criminal
charges against two converts to Christianity, accusing them of
"insulting Turkishness," inciting hatred against Islam and secretly
compiling data on private citizens for a local Bible correspondence
course, according to an Oct. 31 report by Compass Direct news
service.

Hakan Tastan, 37, and Turan Topal, 46, joined the ranks of 97 other
Turkish citizens taken to court in the last 16 months over alleged
violations of the country’s controversial Article 301 restricting
freedom of speech, Compass reported.

The attorney for the two Christians, Haydar Polat, said a state
prosecutor in the Silivri Criminal Court filed a formal indictment
against Tastan and Topal on Oct. 12. If convicted, the accused men
could be sentenced from six months to three years in prison, Compass
reported, noting that the first hearing for the trial is set for Nov.
23 in Silivri, 45 miles west of Istanbul along the Marmara Sea coast.
Polat said the trial could be expected to continue for a year or
more.

Citing articles 301, 216 and 135 of the Turkish penal code, the
indictment accuses the defendants of approaching grade school
children and high school students in Silivri and attempting to
convert them to Christianity, Compass reported.

According to the written charges, the three plaintiffs, identified as
23-year-old Fatih Kose, 16-year-old Alper and Oguz, 17, claimed the
two Christians had called Islam a "primitive and fabricated religion"
and had described Turks as a "cursed people."

They also accused Tastan and Topal of opposing the Turkish military,
encouraging sexual misconduct and procuring funds from abroad to
entice young people in Silivri to become Christians. Tastan and Topal
deny all charges, Compass reported.

Neither of the men knew they were under investigation until Oct. 11,
when two carloads of gendarme officials appeared with a search
warrant at Tastan’s home at 8 a.m., Compass recounted. The officers
informed Tastan that a complaint had been made against him claiming
he had unlicensed guns and was conducting illegal missionary
activities. While Tastan and his wife and two small children looked
on, the search team spent two hours combing their apartment in
Buyukcekmece, on the western outskirts of Istanbul.

"Now let’s go to your office and find Turan," the soldiers told
Tastan, instructing him to call Topal and ask him to stay at the
office until he arrived, without explaining why, Compass reported.
Tastan was surprised that they knew his office address and the name
of his office partner; he later learned that a Silivri prosecutor had
given the gendarme written permission to follow, photograph and
secretly tape them for one month.

After searching the small bureau in Istanbul’s Taksim district, the
gendarme confiscated two computers and an array of books and papers,
Compass reported. They then loaded the two Christians into their
vehicles and drove them back to Silvri.

After hours of interrogation by military intelligence officials, the
two men were released for the night and ordered to return the next
morning to complete the investigation, Compass reported. By the end
of Oct. 12, they had recorded their formal statements before the
prosecutor.

Both men said they had categorically denied all the accusations
against them, Compass reported, noting that the charges apparently
are based on three or four trips they had made to Silivri months ago
to meet a teacher and several high school students who had contacted
an Istanbul-based Bible correspondence course requesting a visit.

"It’s all lies," Topal told Compass. "Someone is trying to make us
look like a Christian tarikat [banned religious sect]." He said one
of the gendarme officials told him he was accused of having weapons,
forming illegal cell groups, evangelizing children and trying to
destroy the secular state of Turkey.

Topal, who became a Christian 17 years ago, said he told the gendarme
interrogators that he was innocent, "but I am doing missionary work.
I am a Christian evangelist and I don’t deny that. So you can put me
in jail for that, if you want. But you know what I’m doing is not
against the law."

A Christian for 12 years, Tastan said he told the prosecutor, "I am a
Christian and I am a Turk. I will keep on sharing my faith. We are
not ashamed to be Christians and we are not hiding anything."

Tastan said he worked part-time at a printing house and gave the rest
of his time to Christian ministry, Compass reported.

Just four days after the two were released, the mass-circulation
Hurriyet newspaper gave front-page coverage to the Silivri
investigation under the headline, "Gendarme raid missionary office,"
Compass reported.

Declaring that parents of Silivri students had complained that the
two men were promoting missionary activities among grade school
students, the Oct. 16 article claimed that their office, linked with
the Taksim Protestant Church, had compiled names and detailed private
data on 5,000 citizens in Turkey’s Marmara region.

Topal said the claims are absurd, but news clips based on the
Hurriyet release were broadcast that same day on TGRT television and
the local TV music channel.

The next morning, an article in the Islamic Zaman newspaper linked
the Christians’ arrest and interrogations with a Turkish draft-dodger
who had hijacked a Turkish Airlines plane two weeks before flying
from Albania to Istanbul. Claiming he was a Christian and a
conscientious objector, Izmir-born Hakan had appealed to Pope
Benedict XVI for asylum.

According to Zaman, "… it was confirmed that the hijacker had ties
with Tastan and Topal." The Oct. 17 article stated that the men had
confessed in their formal statements that they knew Ekinci and that
he had led Protestant missionary activities in the Aegean region of
Turkey.

After examining the legal file against Tastan and Topal, Isa Karatas,
spokesman for the Alliance of Protestant Churches in Turkey,
commented, "There is no legal proof. It only contains verbal
allegations, without any evidence."

Karatas told Compass he considered it "a violation of democratic
rights" for the gendarme team to raid and search a private home and
office "without a single piece of evidence — and then pass on this
destructive and unsubstantiated information to the media."

Meanwhile, the European Union has reiterated its demand that Turkey
either amend or scrap Article 301, which prohibits "insulting
Turkishness."

EU critics complain that the law fails to define "Turkishness,"
allowing prosecutors to issue widely varying legal interpretations in
a rash of cases against journalists, novelists, professors and other
intellectuals. Turkey instituted Article 301 in June 2005 as part of
the country’s package of reform laws to facilitate the overwhelmingly
Muslim nation’s entry into the European Union.

According to Turkish media reports, Rene van der Linden, chair of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, suggested in an Oct.
26 meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul that Europe’s
objections to Article 301 could outweigh even the unresolved dispute
over Turkey’s refusal to open its seaports and airports to traffic
from EU member Greek Cyprus.

But the government insists that the issue focuses on "implementation"
of the law, arguing that the courts have yet to send anyone to jail
for alleged speech restriction violations.

Although several prominent defendants have been acquitted, including
this year’s Nobel prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk, dozens of
trials still are pending in the courts. A number of cases focus on
comments regarding the Turkish state’s denial of what it terms the
"alleged genocide" of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

Another acquittal was handed down in May to two professors who
prepared a controversial report for a parliamentary sub-commission
regarding minority and cultural rights. The report maintained that
non-Muslims in particular were subject to discrimination in Turkey
and sometimes treated as foreigners rather than equal Turkish
citizens.

The report, accused by nationalists of being treasonous, was disowned
by the government and never published, according to Compass Direct.
–30–
Reported by Barbara G. Baker for Compass Direct, a news service based
in Santa Ana, Calif., focusing on Christians worldwide who are
persecuted for their faith. Used by permission.

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress