Turkey was the scene of a bloody attack against Christians yesterday, as assailants killed three people at a publishing house that distributed Bibles in Malatya, a city in eastern Anatolia that had witnessed similar provocative attacks in the recent past. International news agencies focused on the brewing tensions in Turkey once again, after the murder of Catholic Priest Andrea Santoro on Feb. 5, 2006, while sources from the city told the Turkish Daily News that the victims had been receiving threats for years. The TDN also contacted the brother-in-law of one of the victims. The three victims were found with their throats slit and their hands and legs bound, Malatya Gov. Ibrahim Daşöz said. One was still alive when found, and was taken to hospital but died later, he said, adding that one of the victims was a foreigner, possibly a German. A fourth man who jumped from a window to escape was hospitalized with injuries, officials said, according to The Associated Press. Dr. Murat Cem Miman told CNN-Turk television that the man was undergoing surgery for head trauma, while a local source told the TDN he was in fact one of the assailants. Police detained four suspects after the incident.
Continuous threats
The Zirve (Zenith) publishing house, in the city of Malatya, has been the site of previous protests by nationalists. Zirve's general manager told CNN-Turk that his employees had been threatened recently. "We know that they have been receiving threats," Hamza Özant said. The identity of one of the victims, Necati Aydın, 35, was confirmed to the TDN by his brother-in-law, Wolfgang Hade. Aydın was the director of the publishing house, said Hade yesterday, who is the pastor of the Protestant church in Izmit. “Aydın had told me of the threats," said Hade. He said two men had come into the shop four or five months ago and told him that he was not welcome in Malatya. But he did not take it seriously.” Isa Karataş, the speaker for the Union of Turkish Churches also knew Aydın, and described him as "a man of good heart and compassion."Aydın was trying to publish Christian books in Malatya, Rev. Karataş said, whereas other victims might simply be working for the publishing house. "Of course they had been receiving threats," Rev. Karataş replied to the TDN's question. "Is it possible to evangelize Christianity in Turkey and not get threatened?" "Their only guilt was that they believed in Jesus and were open about it and they died for their faith," Hade said.
Had to change name
A local journalist, speaking to the TDN, gave a detailed account of the publishing house, and the threats against it “Zirve was seen here as the continuation of ‘Kayra' publishing house, which was targeted by various nationalist groups on the grounds that they were missionaries,” said the journalist, on condition of anonymity. “Some ultra-nationalist local papers here, plus nationalist organizations demonstrated against them.” ‘Kayra' was led by a South African named Martin Delange, he continued. “Delange could not withstand the threats and left the country. The publishing house also had to change its name due to ongoing threats.” ‘Zirve' did not even have a nameplate or an outdoor sign because of this fearsome climate, the journalist noted. Coming back to the horrific incident, he said the person who tried to escape from the window was actually an assailant: “The witnesses I spoke to said after he jumped off, the man signaled to the people on the street that they should stay silent. After he was caught, on the way to hospital, he continued his charade, shouting that the publishing house was forcing him to sell books.”
A deviation?
The journalist said the slicing of throats might be an attempt to make people think that the massacre was committed by the Turkish Hezbollah, a violent and shadowy group. “There has never been such a Hezbollah operation in this city before,” he said. “Those people were threatened and now they are dead. Nobody protected them. The government did not act as it should have.” Relating the incident to recent tensions over the presidential elections, the journalist said some cities in Turkey are like powder barrels at such times, such as Malatya, Mersin and Trabzon. “We are living through a period of concocted tension, which also includes the murder of Hrant Dink,” he concluded. Earlier this year, a suspected nationalist fatally shot Armenian Christian editor Hrant Dink in Istanbul. Dink was born in Malatya, and tensions in the city increased significantly after the murder. At a football match on 28 Feb., Trabzonspor supporters chanted “Armenian Malatya” as an ‘insult' to Malatyaspor supporters. A foreign journalist, reporting on religious persecution, told the TDN that they have witnessed an increase in violence against Christians for the last three years. “The threats were not taken seriously until the deaths of priest [Santoro] and Hrant Dink," she said.
Rightwing at the center
In the past the main population of Malatya consisted of Armenians and Alevis, said Sinan Özbek, a lecturer at the Kocaeli University's philosophy department. “Yet in the center of the city, the rightwing has always been strong.” Before the military coup in 1980, Malatya used to be known as the city that “exported” radical rightwing militants to other cities, he continued: “The style of the killings reminds one of the murders committed by the Turkish Hezbollah. The political climate of Malatya is convenient for such an organization to flourish, but one can never know for sure.” Malatya is also known as the hometown of Mehmet Ali Ağca, the nationalist hit man who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II in 1981. It was also the scene of violent attacks against the Alevi sect in the late 1970s.Damaris Kremida, Onur Burçak Belli, Mustafa Akyol and Taylan Bilgiç contributed to this story.
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=71087
JPTF 2007/04/20
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