Tag Archives: Country: Turkey

News from The Associated Press: The spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians said Monday that Turkey’s new constitution should grant equal rights to minorities in the country and safeguard religious freedoms.

Education News: The often-charged debate about the origin of life pitting the science community against doctrinal conservatives is not just a U.S. phenomenon but one the Muslim world is increasingly engaged in, a visiting professor said Thursday evening at Trinity University.

Religion Clause: Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a resolution urging the Secretary of State to pressure Turkey on issues of religious freedom. House Resolution 306, adopted by voice vote on Dec. 13, is summarized by the Congressional Research Service. The resolution . . .

FT.com: Iran has criticised Turkey’s secular system of government as an unsuitable example for countries in the Arab spring, in the latest sign of growing tension between the two regional powers.

Religion Clause: VP Biden Meets In Turkey With Ecumenical Patriarch.

Hurriyet Daily News: After a visit to jailed deputies in Silivri Prison, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the Republican People’s Party, says the judicial system in Turkey is ‘under the control of the political authority, and the prison in Silivri is a ‘concentration camp’

Todays Zaman: The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has found the Turkish government guilty of failing to carry out an effective investigation in the case of a transgender woman who was harassed by a police officer.

The Volokh Conspiracy: So held the European Court of Human Rights in Altuğ Taner Akçam v. Turkey (Oct. 25, 2011), a case brought by a professor who had been subject to prosecutions (brought by individuals) under the law based on his work on the Armenian genocide. An excerpt from the court’s reasoning . . .

Eugene Volokh reports at The Volokh Conspiracy.

Reuters: Tunisia’s new political order will show that Islam and democracy can co-exist just as they have in Turkey, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday.

Religion Clause: The New York Times reports that on Saturday, Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a decree returning to minority religious groups hundreds of properties that have been seized since 1936.

EuropeNews: In Germany, where Holocaust denial is punishable by up to five years in prison, Stuttgart University recently capitulated to pressure from resident Turkish Muslims and canceled an event entitled, “Persecution, Expulsion and Annihilation of Christians in the Ottoman Empire 1912-1922.”

Times.am: “Ambassador Ricciardone’s demonstrably false assertion betrays a callous disregard for Ottoman Turkey’s wholesale destruction of Christian churches, and for the fate of the millions of Christian faithful, who worshipped in their homeland within these holy sites until their genocidal annihilation,” said Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the ANCA

WSJ.com: In its early phases, Mr. Akyol says, Islam was a religion “driven by merchants and their rational, vibrant and cosmopolitan mindset.” But ultimately “the more powerful classes of the Orient—the landlords, the soldiers and the peasants—became dominant, and a less rational and more static mindset began to shape the religion. The more trade declined, the more the Muslim mind stagnated.” Applying this historical lesson today, Mr. Akyol claims that “socioeconomic progress in Muslim societies” may change Islam itself—leading to progress in “religious attitudes, ideas, and even doctrines.”

FoxNews.com: A tomb believed to be that of St. Philip the Apostle was unearthed during excavations in the ancient Turkish city of Hierapolis.

A rather heated exchange at YouTube over the issue of Islamic immigration and integration in Europe.

BuenosAiresHerald.com: Erdogan is expected to pave the ways for the Turkish institutions to welcome “European values and standards,” said in a statement presidents of the European Community and European Consul , Jose Manuel Durao Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy.

AP: Turkey’s government has defended a new regulation that will filter the Internet and restrict access to websites that show pornography, bomb-making and violent content.

UPI: A Turkish family consultant says legalizing polygamy would protect women who are already involved in what are in effect polygamous marriages.

BBC: A former Turkish judge who says he was prosecuted for his views on the fate of Armenians and Kurds has been granted asylum in the Netherlands.

John Eibner at the Middle East Forum: The soft power of the modern papacy, with its appeals for religious liberty, can exercise a positive influence on Turkey and the rest of the Islamic world. But Islamic powers can see, as did Stalin, an absence of papal military divisions in the current clash of civilizations. Unless the thoroughly secularized nations of what was once Christendom provide firmer backbone, the Vatican will have little choice but to bend with the breeze.

AP: Turkey has launched a project to conserve an ancient Armenian cathedral and church in what is seen as a gesture of reconciliation toward its neighbor.

AP: Journalist Ahmet Sik was preparing a book about the alleged infiltration of Islamists into the Turkish police, a sensitive theme in a nation divided over the role of religion. Now he is in jail, suspected of links to what authorities say is a secularist plot to topple the government . . .

EU-Info-Thek (translation by Google): Currently, according to a recently published GfK survey in favor, half of the Turkish population to their country joining the EU. When, in October 2005, the EU decided to open negotiations with Turkey, there were almost 75 percent. In the meantime, the Turks have become visibly skeptical. This is particularly evident in the cities, where accession to the EU of less than 50 percent are considered positive.

AP on Yahoo: The court ordered police to seize all draft documents and copies of investigative journalist Ahmet Sik’s book, which reportedly focuses on the influence of an Islamic group within the police force.

AP: “A Turkish court ordered five military officers and two civilians jailed Monday in a probe into the 2007 killing of three Christians, including a German national, over allegations that the attack was part of an alleged plot to topple the government.”

Baptist Press: Though the horrific murders of three employees of a Bible publishing firm in Malatya, Turkey, in 2007 have not been replicated, a report by the Turkish Association of Protestant Churches contends that harassment continues to be a daily problem for Protestant Christians and churches in the country.

Religion Clause Blog: Forum 18 reported yesterday on the continuing problems faced by minority religious communities in Turkey in establishing and maintaining formally recognized places of worship

Catholic Herald: “Briefly, the Turkish Prime Minister, Recip Erdogan, has put his weight behind attempts to crush a small Christian community and to seize an important part of its assets. Though there are now only a few thousand Syro-Orthodox Christians left, they are still in occupation of one of the oldest monasteries anywhere in the world.”

CBN (includes video): “They are trying to stop Turks in this country, citizens in this country from having the freedom to choose Christ,” he said. “Even though legally they have this freedom, they are trying to use my case as a precedent for others to say you don’t have this personal choice. This is definitely the goal of why they’ve opened this case against me.”

Deutsche Welle: “The reprimanding of a teacher for advocating evolution has prompted a political row in Turkey, as teachers and academics worry that the Islamic-rooted government is trying to undermine science education.”

Euractiv: “Nearly 187,000 women in Turkey, a candidate country for EU membership, are in polygamous marriages despite the practice being illegal in the country, a report has revealed.”

Haaretz: “Guests at an Istanbul film premiere were among the first victims of new curbs on alcohol that have raised secularist fears Islamic strictures may be encroaching on everyday life.”

Hurriyet Daily News: “A decision at Sunday’s Grand Alevi Congress will lead to mass lawsuits against compulsory religious education in Turkey and Alevi congresses being held abroad, the heads of leading Alevi organizations have said.”

Hurriyet Daily News: “State Minister Faruk Çelik on Friday said Turkey is a democratic, secular country and its position, as it continues to work toward EU membership, is very clear and not open to any controversies.”

Associated Press: “Turkey promised to speed up its judicial system on Wednesday after a new EU-inspired law forced the government to free alleged Islamic militants accused of torturing and killing dozens, as well as suspected rapists, murderers and mobsters whose trials have lasted for years.”

Boston.com (AP): “Police have detained 10 people suspected of links to the al-Qaida terror network and accused of preparing to stage an attack before New Year’s Eve, the state-run Anatolia news agency said Thursday.”

Hurriyet Daily News: “Turkey is unable to train enough religious clerics and to solve the problem religious education should be assigned to the Religious Affairs Directorate, according to a consultant in the governmental department.”

Associated Press: “A Turkish news agency says a court has released a man whom prosecutors accuse of plotting to murder Jewish rabbis and the Istanbul-based leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians.”

National Post: “The remains of a Canadian diplomat buried in Turkey were reportedly forcibly removed from a local cemetery after a prominent Muslim family said they weren’t comfortable praying next to a Christian grave.”

Hurriyet Daily News: “Turkish State Minister Faruk Çelik introduced a new draft curriculum for compulsory religious classes Monday in continuing efforts to accommodate the country’s Alevi community’s demands that new textbooks be produced for the classes.”

MSN / AFP: “Turkey’s Alevis, a distinct moderate sect of Islam, have put government support for religious freedom to the test by pressing for broader rights in a country where they are often seen as heretics.”

AsiaNews: “Today is a great day for our Great Mother Church. The orphanage on Princes Island (Buyukada) has been given back to us. What we inherited from our ancestors has also been returned to us. We could not tolerate the injustice done to us. We first turned to Turkey’s courts. Since we lost all of our cases, we turned to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which gave us justice,” the Patriarch said.”

Daniel Pipes: “As the secular Turkey founded by Atatürk threatens to disappear under a wave of Islamism, the Islamist Iranian state founded by Khomeini apparently teeters, on the brink of secularism. Turks wish to live like Iranians, ironically, and Iranians like Turks.”

Jay Sekulow and Grégor Puppinck writing at New Europe: “Turkey is a real cause of concern for religious freedom, both in Turkey and in Europe. The ECLJ, as an NGO dedicated to the promotion of Religious freedom, we believe secularism is not the appropriate response to contend with Islamism and Pluralism. An empty public space has nothing to propose and even less to oppose. In this regard, the promotion of the European spiritual and moral and morals is essential, and the advocacy for the rights and of Turkish religious minorities is a real duty, especially for Europe.”

Renate Sommer writing at New Europe: “Having suffered genocide, displacement and discrimination, the number of religious minorities from Christian and Jewish decent has diminished significantly. Today, only 1% of the Turkish population is Christian or Jewish constituting only 92.000 citizens of Armenian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox or Jewish belief. In addition, the Muslim minority of the 15 to 20 million Alevis in Turkey faces major impediments with regard to the exercise of their belief.”

Hurriyet Daily News: “‘Passive euthanasia’ occurs across Turkey due to insufficient health services despite the lack of legal recognition for assisted suicide, according to legal and medical experts.”

Hurriyet Daily News: “One of Turkey’s largest Alevi organizations staged a sit-down strike Saturday in Istanbul’s Kadıköy Square to demand an end to mandatory religious classes, arguing that the lessons are tools of assimilation.”

Hurriyet Daily News: “Values taught to Turkish students should be based on ‘faith in God’ and imparted using Islamic terminology, a commission with the National Education Council has said, prompting concerns among educators’ unions in the country.”

Wall Street Journal (full text via Google News): “Turkey shut down YouTube on Tuesday, just days after had lifted a ban of more than two years.”

Mike Adams writing at Townhall: “[German Chancellor Angela Merkel] had the guts to say that Germany’s recent drift towards multiculturalism has been an unmitigated disaster. And she went one step further calling on their immigrants to learn German and adopt Christian values . . . Merkel rightly understands that subsidizing immigrants does not make a country strong. In fact, it makes a country weak if the subsidies are not made in exchange for compliance with certain demands – such as speaking German and abandoning the Muslim practice of forced marriage.”

AFP: “The relaxing of a ban on Turkish students wearing the Islamic headscarf to college has done little to silence a debate about the limits to the enforcement of secularism on campus.”

David P. Goldman writing at First Things / On The Square: “Today, [Merkel's] party offered a position paper stating that while Germany had benefited from immigrants, it had problems ‘with a minority which will not integrate itself, doesn’t learn our language and shields its children from participation and advancement in our society.’ Germany should offer ‘no tolerance’ to those who refuse to integrate into German society, including consequences for residency’ . . . The facts the global press failed to mention, however, include the fact that an important motivation for the Chancellor’s remarks lies in Germany’s profound disillusionment at the radical Islamist tendencies in Turkey’s government, led by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, and Germany’s alarm at Turkey’s drift towards Islamism.”

“German President Christian Wulff took part in a religious ceremony at a church-turned museum in southern Turkey on Thursday, following which he reiterated his earlier calls for more religious freedoms for Christians in Turkey.”

Compass Direct: “After four years of legal battle in a Turkish court, a judge acquitted two Christians of insulting Turkey and its people by spreading Christianity, but not without slapping them with a hefty fine for a spurious charge.”

Associated Press: “Turkey’s governing party failed to win key opposition support on Wednesday for plans to lift a ban on the wearing of Islamic head scarves at universities, a deeply divisive issue in a country with secular laws and a Muslim population.”

Associated Press: “Turkey’s president on Tuesday urged politicians in Germany not to exploit the issue of immigration for political gain and said they should instead help Turks better integrate.”

AP: “The slaying shocked the Turkish church and cast a cloud over Benedict’s visit. It was the latest in a string of attacks in recent years on Christians in predominantly Muslim Turkey, where Christians make up less than 1 percent of the 70 million population.”

Armenia News: “‘September 26-28, I accompanied a small group of Diaspora Armenians to Ani, Bayazet, Van, Bitlis, Mush and Kars. On September 26, Sunday, just a week after the September 19 Mass, Armenians were not allowed to say the “Lords Prayer” inside the Akhtamar Church of the Holy Cross.’”

“In a flurry of speeches and meetings — and one meeting that did not happen — the Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, defended his country’s close ties to Iran, proclaimed Turkey’s intention to become a leader in the Muslim world . . . ”

Srdja Trifkovic writing at Chronicles: “Over the past eight years, Prime Minister Rejep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Islamist government and his AKP (Justice and Development Party) have been successful in undermining Mustafa Kemal’s legacy and the character of the state founded upon that legacy. What remained, until last Sunday’s referendum, was an increasingly empty shell of constitutional secularism . . . [O]n September 12 . . . Turkey’s voters approved, by a large margin, a 26-article package which will end the Army’s role as the guardian of secularism. On current form, there is but little doubt that Erdoğan will be reelected with a simple majority when he calls the general election next spring.”

Reuters: “About 200 Greek Orthodox Christians want to travel to Istanbul to try to hold mass at the former basilica of Hagia Sophia, defying Turkish law that bars religious services in what is now a museum. A Turkish Foreign Ministry official said Ankara could stop the group from entering Turkey if they pose a security threat.”

Reuters: “A new draft constitution, aimed at enhancing democracy and individual rights in Turkey, will not be ready to show voters before an election next July, a senior member of the ruling AK Party said on Wednesday.”

The Globe and Mail: “With a double victory in Sunday’s constitutional referendum, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is poised to make sweeping changes in his officially secular, but predominantly Muslim country. The package of changes was supported by 58 per cent of the 39 million people who voted, paving the way for the government to appoint a large number of high-court judges more in tune with the government’s Islamic tendencies . . .  the government can, in short order, usher in a panel of judges that are likely to approve legislation extending religious practices and policies in the country.”

Washington Post: “Sarrazin, a board member of the German Central Bank, has divided the nation by postulating the theory that Germany is being ‘dumbed down’ by Muslim immigrants and their children. Wielding statistics and scientific arguments both in his book and in public comments, he delves into territory largely taboo here since the Holocaust, suggesting that ‘hereditary factors’ are at least partly to blame. Turks and Kurdish immigrants, he asserts, are genetically predisposed to lower intelligence than Germans and other ethnic groups, including Jews.”

Soeren Kern writing at Hudson New York: “During his recent two-day state visit to Italy, Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi declared that ‘Islam should become the religion of the whole of Europe.’ He also said that Europe’s conversion would become a fait accompli ‘when Turkey becomes a member of the European Union.’ Europeans mostly dismissed Gaddafi’s proselytizing as ‘Islamic propaganda,’ and as a ‘non-solicited provocation lacking seriousness’ . . . Gaddafi’s vision of an Islamicized Europe is closer to becoming a reality than many Europeans are willing to admit . . . ”

Eurasianet: “For all their fear, however, the pair embarked on a radical experiment, launching the first-ever magazine for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual (LGBT) Kurds this July. Called ‘Hevjin’, meaning ‘intercommunity’ in Kurdish, the first issue of the free publication is available online and in a few bookshops and cafés in Diyarbakir, a city with a large Kurdish population.”

“‘We feel disturbed when we hear that a minaret has been banned in Europe. We should be protecting freedom of religion for different religions in our own territory.”

Christian Today: “Turkey allowed Christians to hold a rare service at a politically sensitive monastery for the first time since the modern-day country’s creation nearly nine decades ago.”

Associated Press: “For most of the last century, Turks were told to look askance at the Ottoman Empire. Nostalgia for the 1453 conquest of Constantinople and other early triumphs was fine – but the excesses of the sultans were the stuff of decay, no model for modern Turkey. Today, the legacy of the Ottomans is enjoying a makeover.”

Forum 18: “Turkey continues to interfere in the choices made by the Jewish, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic communities of who should lead them, Forum 18 News Service notes. The government makes no attempt to hide this interference, which raises serious questions in relation to its international human rights commitments to allow religious communities to select the leaders of their choice.”

Christian Science Monitor: “Turkey is a member of a select geopolitical club: rising democracies. This club encompasses not only Turkey, but also India, Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa. Their emergence is a crucial – but untold – development of the 21st century. Rising democracies offer the West an opportunity to perpetuate the international order founded in the wake of the Second World War.”

Washington Times: “German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle appeared on Wednesday to offer support for Turkey’s stalling bid to join the European Union, saying in Istanbul that the country’s ‘direction is toward Europe.’”

Eurasianet.org: “The legal hurdles still threatening the Patriarchate’s existence are formidable, and in an interview last December, the church’s leader, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, told the Milliyet newspaper: ‘We are without oxygen. The Patriarchate is dying.’ Bartholomew is regarded as the spiritual leader of the world’s 300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians, and his church has existed in Istanbul, formerly know as Constantinople, for more than 1,700 years.”

John F. Cullinan writing at National Review Online: “There are fewer than 60 Catholic priests in all of Turkey, and yet Bishop Luigi Padovese was the fifth of them to be shot or stabbed in the last four years, starting with the murder of Fr. Andrea Santoro in 2006, also by an assailant shouting, ‘Allahu Akbar!’ … What’s going on? Why has traditionally secularist Turkey, with its minuscule Christian community (less than 0.2 percent of the population), lately become nearly as dangerous for Christians as neighboring Iraq? And why has this disturbing pattern of events so far escaped notice in the West? In a nutshell, all these violent acts reflect a popular culture increasingly shaped by Turkish media accounts deliberately promoting hatred of Christians and Jews.”