Cases of harrassment, torture, imprisonment, assault and religious persecution in Turkey:
August 22, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – The five young Turkish men accused of torturing and killing three Christians in Malatya last year may have been incited by members of a vast political conspiracy allegedly responsible for multiple murders in recent years. Click here to read more.
July 9, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – Despite new court testimony naming a web of ranking local officials behind the slaughter of three Christians in Malatya last year, defense lawyers for the alleged murderers attempted to turn last week’s hearing into an investigation into Christian missionary activities. Click here to read more.
June 26, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – Twenty months after two Turkish Christians went on trial for allegedly “insulting Turkishness and Islam,” a local criminal court has requested a Justice Ministry review of one of three charges in the case. On Tuesday (June 24), Silivri Criminal Court Judge Mehmet Ali Ozcan ordered a review of the two Christian converts’ alleged violations of the controversial Article 301 of the Turkish penal code. Accused of spreading Christianity by illegal methods, Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal were charged in October 2006 under Turkey’s Article 301 for denigrating “Turkishness.” Click here to read more.
June 10, 2008: (Assist News Service) Police in the Turkish capital of Ankara have warned a legally recognized church that it would be closed in three days. That news comes from the Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC). Click here to read more.
May 20, 2008: (International Publishers Association) Ragıp Zarakolu, who at personal risk, has long campaigned for freedom of thought and expression in Turkey, is the latest recipient of the 2008 IPA Freedom to Publish Prize. Click here to read more.
May 6, 2008: (CWN.org) - Three men, one of them armed with a gun and wearing gloves, threatened a Protestant church and its pastor in the Turkish capital city of Ankara yesterday. The culprits fled in a car before police could be summoned. Click here to read more.
April 30,2008: (Article 19) - Reforms made last week to an article of Turkey's penal code that makes "insulting Turkishness" a crime punishable by prison terms do not go far enough, say free expression groups worldwide. Click here to read more.
April 17, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – On the eve of the one-year mark of the slaughter of three Christians here, the impartiality of the judges in the case is in doubt, and the young men on trial have now shifted the blame to one man. Click here to read more.
March 18, 2008: (Compass Direct News) The fourth trial hearing yesterday against the murderers of three Christians in southeast Turkey was postponed for another month after court clerks failed to file a request to replace judges accused of bias. Click here to read more.
March 4, 2008: (IFEX) The General Staff has charged lawyer and human rights activist Eren Keskin for "denigrating the army" under Article 301, and asked the Istanbul Bar Association to carry out a disciplinary investigation against her. Click here to read more.
February 28, 2008:(Compass Direct News) – Lawyers representing the families of three Christians tortured and slaughtered with knives in eastern Turkey last April demanded this week that the three-member bench of judges hearing the case be replaced. Addressing the Malatya Third Criminal Court on Monday (February 25), plaintiff lawyer Özkan Yücel Soylu declared that the “impartiality and independence” of the court was in jeopardy. Soylu told presiding justice Eray Gurtekin and his two associate judges that their repeated refusals to grant the plaintiff legal team’s procedural requests were obstructing justice in the high-profile murder case. Click here to read more.
February 26, 2008: (BBC) Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion. Click here to read more.
January 15, 2008: (IFEX) "In an open letter, the International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists in over 120 countries, criticises the ongoing failure of the Turkish government to reform the internationally denounced article 301 of the Turkish penal code. This criticism comes in the week of the first anniversary of the murder of Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist and IPI World Press Freedom Hero." Click here to read more.
January 8, 2008: Istanbul (Compass Direct News)A Turkish judge in the Black Sea coastal city of Samsun on Sunday (January 6) set free a teenager who confessed to making death threats against a pastor and his church, a day after authorities arrested the minor. Click here to read more.
January 2, 2007: Istanbul (Compass Direct News) – Turkish authorities over the weekend arrested a young suspect allegedly plotting to assassinate a Christian pastor in Antalya during the Christmas and New Year holidays. Click here to read more.
December 17, 2007: Istabul (Compass Direct News) – A 19-year-old Muslim youth stabbed an Italian priest in the stomach yesterday after Sunday services outside a Catholic church in Turkey. Click here to read more.
December 12, 2007: "State Connection in Malatya Murders? Disturbing connections between the murder suspects in the Malatya murders and the military and the state have emerged after the first hearing of the case." Click here to read more.
November 30 (Source: Compass Direct News) – A Syrian Orthodox priest kidnapped in southeastern Turkey Wednesday (November 28) walked free from his captors this afternoon, a church source said. Click here to read more.
November 30, 2007: (Source: Compass Direct News) Bowing to demands of prosecution lawyers, yesterday the judge presiding over a contrived case against two Turkish converts to Christianity for “insulting Turkishness” ordered 12 more witnesses to testify. Click here to read more.
November 27, 2007 (Source: Compass Direct News) – At the opening day trial of three Christians tortured and killed here in April, attorneys for the bereft families accused prosecutors of “sloppy” investigations that focused on the religious activities of the victims rather than on the crime itself. Click here to read more.
November 23, 2007: (Source: IFEX) The prosecution in Beytüþþebap, in Sirnak province of southeastern Turkey, has charged Emin Bal for not informing legal authorities when people shouted "criminal" slogans at the funeral of a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighter he was filming." Click here to read more.
October 11, 2007: (Source: IFEX) "Two sentenced for 'insulting Turkishness' as European Court rules against Turkey." Click here to read more.
October 4, 2007: "A new judge has prolonged the case of two Turkish converts to Christianity after his predecessor resigned under pressure from the plaintiffs’ ultranationalist lawyer." Click here to read more.
October 1, 2007: (Source: Compass Direct News) For Semse Aydin, the shock of the cruel murder of her husband Necati last April still hits her every morning when she awakens. Equally painful, she said, is knowing that her two children will grow up without their father’s loving care and nurture. “Necati’s absence is a cross for me every day,” she admitted. Click here to read more. |
