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'You Are Finished!' Turkey’s Growing War on Christians
FrontPage Magazine ^ | Jun 15, 2020 | Raymond Ibrahim

Posted on 06/15/2020 7:39:06 AM PDT by SJackson

Once secular, Turks are now born and bred on hating infidels.

Islamic terror attacks that target Christians in Turkey are not uncommon.  Around Christmas of 2011, a large-scale al-Qaeda plot to bomb “all the churches in Ankara” was exposed.Right before Christmas 2015,  ISIS issued death threats, including “upsetting videos and pictures,” to at least 20 Protestant churches, and warned that “Koranic commandments… urge us to slay the apostate like you.”

More spectacularly, a gunman dressed as Santa Claus entered a nightclub in Istanbul during New Year celebrations, 2017, and massacred 39 people.  A “heroic soldier of the caliphate,” the Islamic State (“ISIS”) later claimed, “attacked the most famous nightclub where Christians were celebrating their pagan feast.”  The statement further characterized the government of Turkey as being the “servant of the cross.”

What to make of this?  Are attacks on Christians limited to clandestine terrorist organizations operating in Turkey, a nation which otherwise behaves as a “servant of the cross”?

In fact, hate for Christians in once secular Turkey has come to permeate every segment of society—from the average Muslim citizen to the highest levels of government.  The examples are many; a few follow.

In late 2019, a Muslim boy, aged 16, stabbed a Korean Christian evangelist in the heart several times; the 41-year-old husband and father died shortly thereafter.  Months earlier, an “86-year-old Greek man was found murdered in his home with his hands and feet tied”; he was reportedly “tortured.”

Before that, an 85-year-old Armenian woman was stabbed to death in her Istanbul apartment.  Lest anyone mistake the motive, her murderer carved a crucifix on her naked corpse.  According to the report, that “attack marks the fifth in the past two months against elderly Armenian women (one has lost an eye).”

Perhaps most notoriously, in 2009,  a group of young Turks—including the son of a mayor—broke into a Bible publishing house in Malatya.  They bound, sadistically tortured for hours, and eventually slaughtered its three Christian employees. “We didn’t do this for ourselves, but for our religion,” one of the accused later said. “Let this be a lesson to enemies of our religion.”  They were all later released from prison on a technicality.

Much more common than the targeted killing of Christians—but no less representative of the hate—are church related attacks.  Most recently, on May 8, 2020, a man tried to torch a church in Istanbul; the church had been repeatedly attacked previously, including with hate-filled graffiti.

Similarly, when a man opened fire on the Saint Maria Catholic Church in Trabzon in 2018, it was just the latest in several attacks on that church. Weeks earlier, a makeshift bomb was thrown at its garden; in 2016 Muslims crying “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is greater) vandalized the church, including with sledgehammers;  in 2011 the church was targeted and threatened for its visible cross; and in 2006 its priest, Andrea Santoro, was shot dead while conducting church service.

Also while shouting  “Allahu Akbar” and “Revenge will be taken for Al-Aqsa Mosque,”  another Muslim man hurled a Molotov cocktail at another church, Istanbul’s Aya Triada Orthodox Church, partially setting it on fire.  In another incident, four Turks banged and kicked at the door of Agape Church in the Black Sea region—again while shouting “Allahu Akbar!”  According to the holed up pastor, they wanted “to go inside and hit someone or attack in some other way.”

The growing brazenness of such attacks was on full display when a random gang of Muslims disrupted a baptismal church service in Istanbul.  They pushed their way into the church, yelling obscenities; one menacingly waved a knife at those in attendance.   “It’s not the first, and it won’t be the last,” a local Christian responded.

Threatening and/or defacing churches is especially commonIn late 2019, while shouting abuses and physical threats against Christians gathered at the Church of St. Paul in Antalya, a man said  he “would take great pleasure in destroying the Christians, as he viewed them as a type of parasitism on Turkey.”

In early 2019, hate-filled and threatening graffiti—including “You Are Finished!”—was found on the Armenian Church of the Holy Mother of God in Istanbul. Commenting on it, an Armenian activist tweeted, “Every year, scores of hate attacks are being carried out against churches and synagogues.”

One of the most alarming instances occurred in 2015: as many as 15 churches received death threats for “denying Allah.”  “Perverted infidels,” one threat read, “the time that we will strike your necks is soon. May Allah receive the glory and the praise.” “Threats are not anything new for the Protestant community who live in this country and want to raise their children here,” church leaders commented.

Rather than threaten or attack churches, Turkish authorities have the power to simply confiscate or close them (here, here, and here, for examples). In one instance, police, not unlike the aforementioned thugs,  interrupted a baptismal ceremony while raiding and subsequently shutting down an unauthorized church. “Turkey does not have a pathway for legalization of churches,” the report explained.

Other tactics are resorted to when no pretexts can be found.  For example, in an apparent attempt to conceal the online presence of at least one church, authorities labeled it  “pornographic,” and blocked it.  The ban was “horrible,” responded a church representative.  “It’s a shame.  It really pains us at having this kind of accusation when we have a high moral standard.”

Even ancient churches that predate Islam by centuries—including Stoudios monastery, the oldest Christian place of worship in Asia Minor, founded a millennium before its Islamic conquest in the fourteenth century—are being transformed into mosques. After explaining how the Turkish government built nearly 9,000 mosques over one decade, while banning liturgy in the Sumela monastery—another historic site inaugurated in 386, about a 1,000 years before Asia Minor became “Turkey”—a report adds, “This arbitrary ban seems to be yet another demonstration of the ‘unofficial’ second-class status of Christians in Turkey.”

Hate for Christians in Turkey has reached the point that it pursues these “infidels” beyond the grave: attacks on Christian cemeteries are on the rise, prompting one frustrated Christian to ask: “Is it now the turn of our deceased?” According to a March, 2020 report, 20 of 72 gravestones in just one Christian cemetery in Ankara were found destroyed.  In another recent instance, the desecraters broke a cross off a deceased women’s grave; days earlier, her church burial service was interrupted by cries of “Allahu Akbar!

What is behind all these attacks on anything and everything Christian—people, buildings, even graves?  An “environment of hate” was the recent response of a journalist in Turkey:

But this hateful environment did not emerge out of nowhere.  The seeds of this hatred are spread, beginning at primary schools, through books printed by the Ministry of National Education portraying Christians as enemies and traitors. The indoctrination continues through newspapers and television channels in line with state policies. And of course, the sermons at mosques and talk at coffee houses further stir up this hatred.

In other words, once “secular,” Turks are now born and bred on hating Christians.

Interestingly, even this is not enough to prevent ISIS from accusing Turkey of being a “servant of the cross,” which prompts an important question: Just what, exactly, do so-called “radical” Muslims—between 63 and 287 million Muslims in just eleven polled nations support ISIS—deem as the “proper” treatment of Christians?


TOPICS: Editorial; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: antichristian; erdogan; kurdistan; receptayyiperdogan; turkey
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1 posted on 06/15/2020 7:39:06 AM PDT by SJackson
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

..................

2 posted on 06/15/2020 7:39:25 AM PDT by SJackson (wondered...what 10 Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through..Congress, RR)
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To: SJackson

I worked in Istanbul on a contract for IBM before the Muzzies took over. It was nice then, but my contacts in Turkey who remain tell me how bad it has gotten. Based on their reports, I would not risk going back there.


3 posted on 06/15/2020 7:48:03 AM PDT by taxcontrol (Stupid should hurt - Dad's wisdom)
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To: taxcontrol

The fate of Christians in Turkey will be our fate if Muslims ever seize power here.

Whatever is done to Christians there is the fervent wish of ALL Muslims wherever they are found.

EVERY Muslim is suspect!


4 posted on 06/15/2020 7:56:22 AM PDT by elcid1970 ("Pres. Trump doesn't wear glasses. That's because he's got 2020.")
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5 posted on 06/15/2020 7:58:40 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizens Are Born Here of Citizen Parents|Know Islam, No Peace-No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: taxcontrol

And this is in one generation.


6 posted on 06/15/2020 7:58:42 AM PDT by jagusafr
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To: SJackson

This is why I think Islam is the Beast religion of Revelation. Once the Antichrist/False Prophet duo are revealed (the Islamic Mahdi/Isa duo), they’ll have an instant 1 billion bloodthirsty savages to follow them.


7 posted on 06/15/2020 8:04:26 AM PDT by afsnco (18 of 20 in AF JAG)
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To: SJackson

The ‘humanitarian crisis’ loves wiping out Christians. Now that Christians have been permanently disarmed in Europe, the humanitarian crisis will role on through.


8 posted on 06/15/2020 8:05:14 AM PDT by deadrock (<img src="DonaldTrumpisthegreatest.jpeg" width="420">)
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To: deadrock

Move to Lebanon. It was supposed to be the Eastern Christian homeland. Enough Christians move to Lebanon, and it will be. Hizbollah is on the way out and so is Iran. The Druze are neutral and loyal to whatever government is in power. The time is ripe to take back what’s yours.


9 posted on 06/15/2020 8:24:33 AM PDT by Eleutheria5 ("SHUT UP!" he explained.)
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To: Eleutheria5

1950: Beirut is the Paris of the Middle East
2020: Paris is the Beirut of Europe


10 posted on 06/15/2020 8:26:06 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: SJackson

Aren’t they now targeting the Hagia Sophia to turn it into a mosque?


11 posted on 06/15/2020 8:26:54 AM PDT by originalbuckeye ('In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act'- George Orwell..?)
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To: SJackson

When I first became aware of FR I was very concerned that Turkey was in the process of being taken over by islamists. I was assured by manny really sharp folks here that I was incorrect, that Turkey was secular and would never become an islamist state. Sadly they were wrong. The methodology used must be analyzed so as to prevent the sedition here. If the government gives a d@mn.


12 posted on 06/15/2020 8:32:19 AM PDT by Nuc 1.1 (Liberals aren't Patriots. Remember 1789!)
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To: dfwgator

The Paris of the Middle East is moving towards self-liberation. Hizbollah has been depleted by the civil war in Syria, and Iran is weakened and diminished by a triple whammy: American sanctions, corona, and flooding. So anything’s possible. As for the Beirut of Europe, s’et lavivre.


13 posted on 06/15/2020 8:37:00 AM PDT by Eleutheria5 ("SHUT UP!" he explained.)
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To: Nuc 1.1

Demographics did for Turkey. Devout country folk had babies. Secular, party-going city folk did not. So eventually you got a religious majority, and Erdogan quietly installed Islamists into the military, until it was thoroughly infiltrated. So that was that for any hope of a coup preventing the re-Islamization of Turkey. They want to be an empire again, too.


14 posted on 06/15/2020 8:41:34 AM PDT by Eleutheria5 ("SHUT UP!" he explained.)
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To: Eleutheria5

Best hope now is for Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia to all fight each other.


15 posted on 06/15/2020 8:42:55 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...

16 posted on 06/15/2020 8:51:10 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SJackson

Mad Erdog. Turkey was very different before him.


17 posted on 06/15/2020 9:19:40 AM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.)
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To: SJackson
The Muslim Brotherhood connections for Minneapolis, Ilhan Omar, AG Ellis, and thousands of Barry-imported Somalis have gone largely unreported. Thousands of Somalis and other illegal alien Muslim Brotherhood members were imported into the country on clandestine "Deep State"/CIA flights. These aliens were given US passports and have been supported with much higher subsidies than life-long US Social Security retirees and veterans, mostly with taxpayer money.

The Deep State/Muslim Brotherhood placed their fingerprint on the Floyd event, letting everyone know who planned and executed it.

Chauvin and Floyd both working at the El Nuevo Rodeo, which has been a hotbed for illegal alien, counterfeiting and child-trafficking, an outgrowth of its DS/CIA connections. But Derek Chauvin, George Floyd and Mayor Frey have been Muslim Brotherhood Masons. FWIW, Masonic DS MBs are also behind ISIS.

RIght next door to El Nuevo Rodeo is the International Order of Odd Fellows (IOOOF), a Masonic secret society about which President Kennedy famously warned the US citizenry. Chauvin's badge number is 1087, which is the occult number for "murder" [187].   There is zero chance of this being solely coincidence. Chauvin overtly acted his "hand-in-pocket" is the Masonic "hidden hand," just as with Napoleon's famous paintings. Floyd's chest tattoo is the well-known Masonic Ab Ordo Chao design, "Order Out of Chaos" And what's the chance of a 666 garbage can prop on-site? Zero!

             

18 posted on 06/15/2020 9:22:38 AM PDT by rx (Truth will out!)
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To: dfwgator

Remove Khuzestan from Iran, and they are no longer awash in oil, so no longer will have revenue to devote to Jihad. Better by far for Iran’s civil unrest to boil over and Khuzestan to break free. Then the Jive Turkeys and the Saudis can fight it out, and I’ll cook up some popcorn. It’s closer to home to me, but they’re both less formidable than Iran.


19 posted on 06/15/2020 10:38:48 AM PDT by Eleutheria5 ("SHUT UP!" he explained.)
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To: rx
And don't forget the police, "protester" and rioter activity springing up quickly at E 33rd Street!


20 posted on 06/15/2020 10:44:59 AM PDT by rx (Truth will out!)
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