TURKISH HACKERS TARGET VATICAN WEBSITE AFTER POPE’S GENOCIDE COMMENT

Assyrian International News Agency AINA
April 14 2015

Posted 2015-04-14 19:11 GMT

Turkish hackers have brought down the official Vatican City website,
following Pope Francis’ statement in which he referred to mass killings
of Armenians by Turks as ‘genocide’.

According to reports, the website was first taken
offline on Monday evening with a Turkish hacker, named @THTHerakles,
announcing that he would continue to target the website should an
official apology not be issued from the Vatican City.

The hacker said that the Pope’s comments were “unacceptable” for
a respected religious figurehead. “Taking sides and calling what
happened with the Armenians genocide is not true […] We want Pope
[Francis] to apologise for his words or we will make sure the website
remains offline,” he added.

The site was restored within a number of hours, however according to
the apparent perpetrator the main server remained offline.

Turkish hacking groups are not the only community looking to target
the Vatican over the Pope’s recent comments. Both the Turkish and
Armenian government have even expressed their upset. Turkish foreign
minister Mevlut Cavusoglu argued that the statement was “out of touch
with both historical facts and legal basis.”

“Religious offices are not places through which hatred and animosity
are fuelled by unfounded allegations,” he added.

Hacking group Anonymous also claimed to take down the Vatican
website three years ago in protest against the ‘church’s crimes’,
namely controversial Catholic doctrines and the recently uncovered
sexual abuse of children by priests. During the same year, hackers
shut down the website of World Youth Day, an international Catholic
youth festival which took place in Madrid, Spain. The website was
intermittently available on the festival’s first day as Pope Benedict
XVI arrived to take part in the event.

At the time of publishing this article, the official Vatican City
website was not available.