Posted on 11/26/2006 6:43:12 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Thousands rally in Istanbul against papal visit
by Nicolas Cheviron
1 hour, 50 minutes ago
Chanting Islamist slogans and brandishing banners against Western intervention in the Middle East, thousands of people have rallied here to denounce the visit to Turkey by Pope Benedict XVI, which starts on Tuesday.
The demonstration, organized by the Islamist Felicity Party (SP) and entitled "The pope is not welcome", attracted about 15,000 people, far below the 300,000 to one million that activists had predicted Sunday.
Hundreds of security forces, including riot police, were on watch at the Caglayan square in central Istanbul.
The mix of religious and political slogans the protestors shouted reflected widespread suspicions among nationalists and Islamists here that the landmark four-day visit is part of Western designs to subdue the Muslim world, rather than an effort to reconcile religions.
The leader of the Roman Catholic Church triggered uproar across Muslim countries in September when in a speech he linked Islam and violence in quoting a Byzantine emperor who said that the Prophet Mohammed brought "things only evil and inhuman."
"Show respect to the prophet, pope!" one pancard at the rally said. Others read: "Ignorant pope, read your own history!" and "Papa, go home!"
"Allahu Akbar," the protestors chanted, followed by others who shouted "Down with Israel" and "Down with America."
Under photographs of Iraq war victims, one banner asked: "Who did this?"
Another read: "Who is responsible for terrorism: the USA, Israel and the EU, or Iraq and the Palestinians?"
Many brandished banners that read: "No to the crusaders' alliance" -- a slogan endorsed by the SP for the demonstration.
Opponents of the papal visit say the pontiff's scheduled talks with Patriarch Bartholomew I, the Istanbul-based spiritual head of the world's Orthodox Christians, is aimed not only at healing the centuries-old schism between the two churches, but at sealing a Christain alliance against Islam.
The rally highlighted another sensitivity the pope's program has touched here -- his planned visit to Hagia Sophia, a sixth century Byzantine church which was converted to a mosque in 1453 when the Ottomans conquered Istanbul, then called Constantinople. It was transformed into a museum in 1935.
"Break the chains, open Hagia Sophia," the protestors chanted, echoing Islamist desire for the edifice to be re-opened as a mosque.
Opponents believe the pope's planned visit to the building, one of Istanbul's architectural landmarks and a major tourist attraction, is an indication of Christian ambitions to reclaim it as a church.
On Wednesday, police detained 39 nationalist Islamist militants at a wildcat demonstration at Hagia Sophia after they held evening prayers inside the building in defiance of its status as a museum.
The SP had modified the rally's title from "The sly and ignorant pope is not welcome," reportedly after the authorities warned them to avoid offensive slogans.
In anticipation of the demonstration, the pro-SP daily Milli Gazete headlined its front page Sunday with the words: "This is Istanbul, not Constantinople."
"The Pope will see in Caglayan that you cannot blot the sun out with mud," the paper wrote.
The SP is an offshoot of the Welfare Party, ousted from power in 1997 and outlawed the following year for threatening Turkey's secular system.
The party's moderate members, among them Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left the movement and now form the core of the ruling Justice and Development Party, which has disowned its Islamist roots and describes itself as a "conservative democratic" movement respectful of secularism.
How do these people even manage to feed themselves?
To say they are idiots is denegrating to actual idiots.
the Pope is a very brave man
Heaving breasts, silky thighs....I love Thanksgiving.
"Allahu Akbar," the protestors chanted, followed by others who shouted "Down with Israel" and "Down with America."
This how the enemy describes it. Wake up, America.
And in other developments
MAS [Muslim American Society] Plans "Pray-In" at Reagan Airport (BARF Alert!)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1744062/posts?page=1
Hate on display. And this backward country wants to join the European union! That's like headhunters asking to join a soccer team.
And the Pope was right in September.
Been a long time gone
Old Constantinople
Still has Turkish delight
On a moonlight night
Evr'y gal in Constantinople
Is a Miss-stanbul, not Constantinople
So if you've date in Constantinople
She'll be waiting in Istanbul.
I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that the only Good Muslim is a Dead Muslim.
Thousands in a country of how many millions?
Boy, are you ever right!!!!!
Of course whenever one of the Imams, Ayatollahs, Muftis or yabba dabba does visits the West, there are mass demonstrations, with much looting an property damage
....
Oh wait, that just happens after the home team wins a national championship.. never mind.
In many countries, they don't. Turkey is not one of them though. Still they have plenty of the Islamist sub idiots.
If Christians and Jews played by the rules of Islam, that is anyplace that was ever trod by a Muslim, is theirs forever. We'd have to retake Constantinople, aka Istanbul, and force all it's inhabitants to convert... or at least pay a special tax.
That would make the Poles, Italians, French, a good chunk of the Germans (if not all of them, the Pope is German after all) and many Americans, including many non Roman Catholics.... upset... maybe upset enough to actually wake up and smell the coffee... maybe.
I am making a special effort to follow this visit of the Pope. Especially encouraging are the last two paragraphs of this post. Reading from it, it does seem that there was a militant Islamic party. It was removed from power and then outlawed.
It seems that the Prime Minister Erdogan was in that party , but left to form a party that respects the secular aspect of Turkey.
As to the Sophia Hagia- said to be one of the "wonders of the world"- I must concede, I have now seen photographs of it. This courtesy of Wikipedia.
It must be the spring weather up in Great Lakes country. I have a feeling of optimism.
The jury is still out on the state of Turkey. At least they quickly arrested that would be assassin of the previous Pope.He had served his sentence and was released and deported to Turkey. He had murdered a journalist in Turkey previously.
Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you've a date in Constantinople
She'll be waiting in Istanbul
from, "They Might be Giants."
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