THREE KILLED IN ATTACK ON BIBLE PUBLISHER
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
April 18 2007
Attackers on Wednesday slit the throats of three people, including
a German citizen, and caused one other to jump off a building which
houses a Turkish publishing house which printed bibles, security
officials said.
The injured person, who is fighting for survival in a Malatya hospital,
apparently jumped off the building to escape the attackers.
Security officials said four people had been detained in connection
with the attack in the southeastern city of Malatya. Televised images
showed police wrestling one man to the ground and leading several
young men out of the building, apparently in handcuffs.
Witnesses working in offices in the same building as the Zirve
Publishing House said they heard no noise and did not notice
anything out of the ordinary prior to the attack. Details of the
attack including the motive and identity of the attackers were not
immediately available.
The first official statement concerning the attack came from
Malatya Governor H. Ýbrahim Daþoz who confirmed three deaths and
one hospitalization. Daþoz said both the judiciary and security
authorities were on the case, adding that the police had not ruled
out the possibility that the killings might be the result of a
fight between individuals at the publishing house. The governor also
confirmed that three bodies at the scene were found blindfolded with
their throats cut and hands tied behind their backs. The governor’s
statement confirmed two killed at the scene while a third, who was
initially identified only by his first name Uður, lost his life at
hospital. The governor also said one of the slain was a German citizen.
The injured person was identified as Zafer Gunaydýn, who fell off a
tall building as he tried to escape the attackers, according to the
chief doctor of the Turgut Ozal Medical Center. The center’s doctor
Murat Cem Miman, who talked to the NTV news channel, said Gunaydýn was
suffering from a serious head injury apparently caused by falling off
a tall building. His condition was extremely critical, Miman said. The
man named Uður was also taken to the same hospital with a severe stab
wound, where he died, according to the statements which the chief
doctor and the governor made within half an hour of each other.
A journalist talking to the NTV news channel mentioned that the
publisher had faced allegations of printing outlawed publications.
The governor said Christian missionary activities in the region were
not necessarily intense. Some Turkish nationalists take Christian
missionaries to be enemies of the country working to undermine
Turkey’s political and religious institutions. Nationalists had
previously protested outside the Zirve publishing house in Malatya,
accusing it of proselytizing, news reports said. An official from
the publishing house told local television that they had received
threats over its publications.
The attack recalls the murder earlier this year of Armenian-Turkish
editor Hrant Dink by an ultranationalist teenage gunman, prompting
extra security measures for writers and journalists. Dink was also
from Malatya.
The government and other officials in Turkey have in the past
criticized Christian missionary work here while the European Union,
which Turkey hopes to join, has called for more freedom for the tiny
Christian minority.
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