ARRESTS AFTER ‘MISSIONARY’ MURDERS
by Michel Walraven and RNW Internet Desk

Radio Netherlands, Netherlands
April 20 2007

Photo: Turkish demonstrators hold up placards during a protest against
the attack on a Christian publisher (Photo ANP)

Turkish police say they’ve made arrests following the brutal killing
of three employees of a Christian printing business, earlier this
week. The victims had their throats cut in what some observers believe
is a religiously motivated hate-crime.

Dutch MEP and an expert on Turkey Joost lagendijk spoke to Radio
Netherlands Worldwide about whether religious intolerance in the
country is on the rise:

JL: "Over the last couple of years a sort of paranoia has spread
through Turkey especially when it’s about so-called missionaries,
that is people who try to convert Muslims to the Christian belief
and it is a sort of threat being felt by many Turks towards these
sort of people."

"There is the impression that there are thousands of them around
and it is very dangerous for the existence of Turkey that people try
to convert Muslims and I’m afraid, although I can’t be sure for the
moment, I’m afraid that this is at the root of this sort of extremely
aggressive behaviour towards these people."

RNW: Do you look at these sort of murders as a way of quieting
non-Islamic religious voices?

JL: "The fact in itself that one is of another belief in Turkey so one
is a non-Muslim I wouldn’t say makes life easy but it’s not a reason
to be afraid for your life. There are Christians and Armenians, there
are Protestants and Catholics around, although the facilities that
I think they should be entitled to are on many occasions not given,
this is not a life-threatening issue. But there is this special
paranoid fear of missionaries, that is people who actively try to
convert Muslims to their belief."

RNW: The Turkish police have not been very generous when it comes to
providing information on the people that were arrested, who do you
believe is actually responsible for these murders?

JL: "One theory says that the way these murders have been taking
place and the cutting of throats reminds some people of what happened
in the 1990s when an organisation called Turkish Hizbollah, in a way
sponsored by some of the state security apparatus, the secret services,
was used against the left and against the Kurds and they apparently
in the 90s committed the same sort of atrocities as well."

"Others believe that it’s most probably based on this paranoid
aggressive attitude towards missionaries, it is probably people
who belong to some sort of ultra-nationalist or fundamentalist
organisation which we know are around in Turkey. These are for the
moment the theories I hear the most in Turkey."

RNW: What can the Turkish government do to prevent these killings
from happening?

"I think there are two things that the government should do: one is
really put every effort into not only capturing the guys who were
responsible for this tragic death and these murders, but also the
connection that these guys might have with organisations."

"The second thing is that the Turkish authorities should be very clear
and open towards their own population in saying this paranoid fears
of missionaries, of people who try to convert Muslims should die down."