CHRISTIANITY UNDER ATTACK: CHRISTIANS SLAUGHTERED IN MUSLIM-DOMINATED TURKEY
By Judi McLeod
Canada Free Press, Canada
April 19 2007
Violence against Christians continues to claim innocent lives
worldwide.
Turkey’s tiny Christian minority is under attack. In the latest spate
of violence, persons unknown tied up three people at a publishing house
that distributes Bibles in Turkey then slit their throats on the same
day that the so-called "multimedia manifesto" of Virginia Tech mass
murderer Cho Seung Hui was televised with the 23-year-old Virginia
student staring into the camera and spewing anti-Christian rhetoric.
The killings in Turkey occurred in the City of Malatya, in central
Turkey. Malayta, the hometown of Mehmet Ali Agca, the gunman who
tried to assassinate Pope John Paul 11 in 1981, is notorious as a
hotbed of Turkish nationalism.
Malatya Gov. Ibrahim Dasoz confirmed that two of the victims at the
Zirve publishing house were found already dead and the third died
after being rushed to hospital. All three had their throats cut and
their hands and legs were bound.
Desoz said police detained four suspects and were investigating
whether another man who suffered head injuries when he jumped from
the window of the publisher’s office may have been involved in the
attack. He was reported undergoing surgery for his injuries."
One of the victims was Turkish, another was German, but the nationality
of the third person killed could not be confirmed.
Zirve employees recently had been threatened. "We know that they have
been receiving some threats," Zirve’s general manager Hamza Ozant said,
but could not say who made the threats.
Nationalists who accuse it of proselytizing in the Muslim dominated
country had targeted the publishing house.
Christians make up less than 1 percent of Turkey’s 70 million people
with Christians increasingly becoming targets.
Public outrage resulted when in February of 2006 a teenager fatally
shot a Catholic priest as he prayed in his church. Two more Catholic
priests were attacked within months.
Early in 2007, a gunman killed Armenian Christian editor Hrant Dink.
In November the Vatican worried about the safety of Pope Benedict XV1
on an official Turkish visit, after he had made comments in a speech
that Muslims said insulted them. The Pope, who refused to cancel the
trip, was greeted with nonviolent protests.
Canada Free Press founding editor Judi McLeod is an award-winning
journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has
appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck and
The Rant. Judi can be reached at: [email protected].