SUSPECTS SAY THEY KILLED FOR ISLAM
By: Matthew Cresswell.
Religious Intelligence Ltd, UK
April 20 2007
THE SUSPECTED killers of three Turkish Christians at a publishing
house said they did it for the sake of Islam, it was revealed today.
Turkish newspaper Hurrivet reported that one of the suspects said: "We
didn’t do this for ourselves, but for our religion," and: "Our religion
is being destroyed. Let this be a lesson to enemies of our religion."
The three Christians were bound before having their throats slit by
the attackers at a Christian publishing house in Malatya, a central
Turkish city known for it nationalist population. Four suspects are
currently being detained for questioning over the deaths while another
suspect is in hospital after falling from the building.
Among the dead was 46-year-old Tilman Ekkehart Geske, a German who
had lived in Malayta since 2003, and two Turkish citizens. The attacks
add to the ongoing victimisation of the Christian community in Turkey
which number under 700,000 out of a population of 70 million.
Earlier this year the Christian Armenian-Turkish editor Krant Dink
was shot dead by an ultranationalist causing a large public up cry.
Last year a Catholic priest praying in a church was shot dead by
a teenager while Pope Benedict XVI’s recent visit was greeted with
peaceful protests by nationalists.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described the attack as
"savagery" while German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has
condemned the attack "in the strongest terms". An evangelical pastor
in Turkey, Carlos Madrigal, told Reuters: "We would like a government
campaign to get rid of the myths, such as that missionaries are trying
to divide the country, these are the things which feed such acts.
"In some ways the situation has improved because we have got
legal rights … but there are parts of society which have become
radicalised."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
