Strasbourg court reviews Soner Onder's case
Turkish government's defense due on Thursday
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (09.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (10.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - -- The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France, has given the Turkish government until October 11 to submit written comments on its judicial review of the criminal conviction of Syrian Catholic Christian Soner Onder.
The third section of the Council of Europe's court informed the Republic of Turkey in a July 18 memorandum of the results of its initial deliberation on Onder's case, examined by ECHR justices on July 10.
In the seven-page memorandum, the Turkish government was requested to present its comments in writing to the ECHR tribunal on the "admissibility and merits" of three complaints filed by Onder's lawyer regarding the handling of his case.
The three claims found admissible by the court regarded "alleged ill treatment inflicted on [Onder] during his detention," the lack of "independence and impartiality of the National Security Court of Istanbul," and the length and fairness of his trial before this court.
The court unanimously adjourned its deliberations on Onder's case, pending the Turkish government's response to these claims by the set deadline.
For Onder, who has already marked 10 years in Turkish jails, the delay is nothing new.
His appeal to the Council of Europe's court has been pending for review since January of 1998, the month after his final conviction in the Turkish court system.
Arrested at age 17, Onder was accused of helping dozens of Kurdish extremists firebomb an Istanbul department store on December 25, 1991. The teenage defendant denied being present at the scene of the attack, which killed 12 people. But he was jailed without bail in Istanbul's notorious Bayrampasa Prison during the murder trial, which stretched over nearly three years.
According to his own testimony, Onder had been arrested off a bus on his way home from church, during a police sweep after the attack, and tortured to sign a confession.
But in the context of the high-profile murder trial, the court skipped over the medical report verifying his torture, as well as an affidavit by the metropolitan of his church, stating he had been attending Christmas Day services during the time of the attack. And despite police testimony that contradicted his arrest report, he was convicted and given the death penalty, commuted to a life sentence.
Onder's case was appealed at every possible level over the next three years by Hasip Kaplan, a well-known Turkish human rights lawyer. But the Turkish appellate courts refused to re-examine the evidence for his conviction. Kaplan did, however, win a reduced sentence for Onder, since he was under 18 years of age at the time of arrest and thus legally exempt from the death penalty meted out to him.
Now 27, Onder has since his conviction been incarcerated in Istanbul's high-security Umraniye Military Prison. He is currently being allowed visits from his family every 15 days. During the initial months of this year, the jail was closed to visitation in the wake of massive prison riots last December that left 30 prisoners and two guards dead and Onder's own barracks destroyed by fire.
The youngest of nine children, Onder has one brother and sister still residing in Istanbul. Most of his family, including his elderly mother, have emigrated from Turkey to Switzerland and Germany over the past two decades. His family has not given up hope that the ECHR will rule in his favor, even perhaps by the end of this year.
If Onder's conviction is not overturned by the ECHR, he would be eligible for parole on June 25, 2003, after serving three-fourths of his commuted death sentence.
Last month, the ECHR in Strasbourg handed down 34 verdicts in which Turkey was found guilty of human rights abuses. The Turkish republic was ordered on September 19 to pay a total of $375,000 in compensation to the aggrieved parties.
"Our international prestige has been eroded by these cases," Turkish Interior Minister Rustu Yucelen admitted in July. Some 2,700 Turkish cases have been filed at the human rights court since 1990, when Turkey formally recognized its judicial authority.
Riza Turmen, the sole Turkish judge serving at the ECHR, declared in May that the Turkish government should start charging the fine accessed by the ECHR to the police officials who commit torture. This would "act as a deterrent," he said, and force "widespread compliance with human rights." Turkey's poor human rights record remains a long-term stumbling block in its drive to join the European Union.
Turkish Christian's slander case delayed again
Police witnesses fail to appear in Diyarbakir
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (05.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (08.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Criminal court hearings against a Turkish Christian accused of insulting Islam were delayed again yesterday in Diyarbakir, where the defendant faces a possible jail sentence of six months to one year if found guilty.
Police officers failed to appear yesterday morning before the Diyarbakir Criminal Court of First Instance, despite a court summons to testify in the case against Kemal Timur, 32.
ccordingly, the presiding judge postponed the case for another four months, until February 5, 2002.
Timur is being tried on charges of calling the prophet Mohammed a "sorcerer" while distributing New Testaments on May 1, 2000, in front of a high school in Diyarbakir, the largest city in southeastern Turkey. A former Muslim who converted to Christianity nearly five years ago, Timur has testified under oath, "I certainly did not say such things."
Last December, seven months after Timur made the alleged comment, he was served notice that a court case had been filed against him under Article 175 of the Turkish penal code. The statute prohibits the slander of God, the prophets, the holy books or an individual believer.
Yesterday's continuance of Timur's case was the fourth postponement in a total of five hearings scheduled since the trial opened last January.
Only two of the original three complainants against Timur showed up at the second hearing on March 27. Although one affirmed he had heard Timur slander Mohammed, the other denied hearing any such statement. Subsequent hearings on May 31 and July 17 were postponed because the judge initially assigned to the case was not present. A new judge took over the case yesterday.
"There is a new judge assigned to the case," defense lawyer Mohammed Akar confirmed to Compass, "but the problem yesterday was that the police failed to come." He noted that the case evidence could rest heavily on the testimony of these three policemen who arrested his client on May 1 of last year. Timur is being defended by Akar and his law firm partner, Kadir Pekdemir.
According to the defendant, the officers had threatened him repeatedly to stop giving out Christian Scriptures in the city. He has been stopped and detained at least eight times while doing such distribution, he told Compass. However, such distribution of purely religious literature without political intent is completely legal under Turkish law, so no charges were pressed against him and he was released.
"Since what he was doing is not illegal," another local Christian told Compass, "this time the police have gotten him accused of slander in a court case, in order to stop him."
Timur was baptized in June of 1997 and officially changed his religion from Muslim to Christian on his national identity card a year ago. He attends a small Turkish Protestant church in Diyarbakir.
"This is a very stressful time for me, and for my family," Timur told Compass yesterday from Diyarbakir, regional capital of Turkey's troubled southeast. The region has been wracked by 15 years of separatist conflict between the Turkish military and Kurdish insurgents. During that time, more than 30,000 people have been killed, at least a million villagers have been uprooted, and the local economy was ravaged.
Married with three small children, Timur has not been able to find full-time work for the past two years in Diyarbakir, where unemployment hovers above 70 percent and the per capita income is $1,000, a quarter of the national average.
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European rights court backs Turkey over Islamist party ban
AFP (31.07.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (09.07.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The European Court of Human Rights backed the Turkish government Tuesday, ruling that its decision to outlaw the Islamist Welfare Party did not violate human rights.
It was a rare victory for Ankara, which has been condemned by the human rights court at least 11 times since 1998 for violations of freedoms of expressions.
By a vote of four to three, the European judges ruled that the January 1998 ban on the Welfare or Refah party of former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan could reasonably be considered a response to a social problem with the aim of protecting Turkish democracy.
The court said that Turkey had not violated article 11 of the European convention on human rights, covering freedom of assembly and association, as claimed by the party founders.
Instead, it underscored that some of the values advocated by Welfare Party leaders, such as introducing Islamic law and legitimazing a holy war to achieve religious ends, were not compatible with the European rights convention.
In Ankara, members of the defunct party immediately said they would appeal and described the ruling as unfair.
This is a double standard and a political decision," added Mehmet Bekaroglu, deputy leader of the newly-established pro-Islamic Saadet -- or Felicity -- Party.
The ruling showed that the "European Convention of Human Rights is valid only for certain countries", Anatolia news agency quoted him as saying.
The court ruled that the Welfare party had raised doubts about its position regarding the use of force to achieve and maintain power.
Erbakan and two former Welfare deputy leaders had complained to the court that Turkey had violated the party's right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
But the court ruled that a political party whose officials insisted on resorting to violence and which did not respect democratic rights or aimed to destroy them, was not protected by the convention.
The court also rejected their claim that their rights against discrimination, freedom of expression, protection of property and right to free elections had been violated.
The Welfare party emerged as Turkey's most popular political party after parliamentary elections in 1995 and came to power as part of a conservative coalition in June the following year.
But the military, Turkey's self-appointed guards of secularism, began pressuring Erbakan, the Islamist prime minister, who was finally forced to resign after a year in office.
In January 1998, the country's constitutional court outlawed Welfare for "becoming the centre of activities against the principle of secularism" and its assets were handed over to the state treasury.
Erbakan, 74, and his two deputies, plaintiffs Kazan and Ahmet Tekdal, were banned from parliament and from taking part in political activities for five years.
The former prime minister was later banned from politics for life and sentenced to a year in jail, but he won a partial amnesty avoiding a prison term.
Ankara argued it was justified in dissolving the party, saying Welfare was using democratic laws and freedoms to introduce Islamic law, or Sharia.
Turkish court releases jailed Christian in Southeast
Video clips in churchyard suspected of being anti-state propaganda
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass Direct (05.07.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (09.07.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - An Assyrian Christian arrested a month ago for taking home videos in an ancient churchyard in Turkey's heavily militarized Southeast was ordered released today by Diyarbakir's State Security Court.
Ibrahim Konutgan, 27, has been jailed since June 8 on suspicion of attempting organized propaganda against the state. A formal statement is expected from the state prosecutor's office on the case within the next few days, his lawyer Kadir Pekdemir confirmed.
Konutgan was arrested by Turkish security police in Idil, a town in Sirnak province some 12 miles north of the Syrian border. Although born in Idil and still a Turkish citizen, Konutgan has lived in Europe since he was 10 years old.
Together with two others, Konutgan was reportedly observed videotaping in the graveyard of Idil's St. Mary's Church, located adjacent to facilities of the Sirnak 2nd Border Battalion of the Turkish army.
The Assyrian Christian's companions were his nephew Musa Konutgan, 20, a Swiss citizen visiting Turkey; and 18-year-old Bilal Gulec, son of the Public Registration Office director in Idil.
According to their families in Europe, the two young Assyrians were taking footage with Musa's video camera for their relatives who had immigrated from Idil to Switzerland and Germany. "It was just for nostalgic reasons," Musa's father Cebrail Konutgan told Compass by telephone from Gebensdorf-Baden, Switzerland. "We wanted them to take it for our children who have never been back there to see our home village."
Both Ibrahim Konutgan and Gulec were jailed in Midyat during an official investigation into the case by the state prosecutor's office. Although Musa Konutgan was questioned and required to sign a formal statement for the authorities, his foreign passport proved an asset. As a Swiss citizen he was released the same day, under orders from the police to leave Turkey within two weeks.
"If Musa was a Turkish citizen, they would have kept him under arrest all these weeks, like Ibrahim," Cebrail Konutgan commented.
Konutgan and Gulec were discharged without bail from the Midyat Central Prison by 7 p.m. today and allowed to return to Idil. Konutgan's lawyer said he expected the local state prosecutor to file his written conclusions on the case as early as tomorrow or next week.
Pekdemir said his client was in good spirits when he was allowed a prison visit with him 10 days after his arrest, although the detained Christian could not understand any reason for his arrest. Referring to the suspicions that prompted his client's arrest, Pekdemir said, "There is simply nothing serious at all in this."
Konutgan was in his fifth semester as a law student in Konstanz University in southern Germany until last November, when his family said he was "by mistake" deported back to Turkey.
According to his brother Ishak Konutgan, who spoke to Compass from Pfullendorf, Germany, judicial attempts to reverse the deportation and clarify a legal channel for Ibrahim's return to Germany have been in process for the past seven months.
Meanwhile, a June 15 article in the leftist "Radikal" daily identified Gulec as an announcer for Medya TV, a Europe-based Kurdish station beamed into Turkey. From Denderleeuw, Belgium, a representative of Medya TV denied that Gulec had any contact or working relationship with the TV station, long accused by Ankara of supporting the banned Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK).
"Anyone who looks at these video clips understands that they were just playing around," Gulec's initial court-appointed lawyer Kemal Ayyildiz told "Radikal." "There is no ideological content to the film footage at all; they were completely joking around." The lawyer said the film included footage of historic and tourist places in Idil and Midyat, with no military locations except for the battalion situated next to St. Mary's Church.
"But because the church is exactly adjacent to the army there," Ayyildiz said, "wide-angle shots taken there included the military site." Another video clip reportedly showed Ibrahim Konutgan lighting a candle inside a church, inviting "all our people in Europe to return to Mesopotamia."
Thousands of Assyrian Christians living in Turkey's war-torn Southeast immigrated to Europe during the late 1980s and 1990s, fleeing the civil war launched in 1984 by PKK separatists against the Turkish state. At least 37,000 lives were lost in the conflict, which since the capture, trial and death sentence of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan two years ago has been reduced to sporadic fighting.
But some 200,000 Turkish soldiers still patrol the region, with all the main roads dotted by recurring roadblocks. Village guards armed and hired by the state in effect control the villages and towns, some of them occupying lands occupied since the 5th century by Assyrian Christians.
In a June 15 opinion piece in the "Turkish Daily News," columnist Mehmet Ali Birand complained about "hard-nosed" decision-makers in the government who "brazenly rough up the minorities" for so-called "security" reasons.
"They do not accept that there could be Syriacs [Assyrians], Kurds, Greeks or Armenians living in Turkey . that have exactly the same rights as anyone known as a Turkish citizen," Birand declared. The columnist said he was referring not to measures curbing terrorism, but to "the general treatment meted out to anyone not of Turkish origin."
"We should know that as long as we cannot escape seeing minorities as the enemies of the Turkish state, we will not be able either to leave them in peace, or ourselves. It is not laws, but heads that should be changed," Birand concluded.
Turkey arrests leader of sect over prayers without permit
New York Times (02.07. 2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (04.07.2001)-Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email :info@hrwf.net -The leader of an American-based mystic Islamic Sufi sect was arrested on Thursday in Izmir on charges of praying in a group without
a permit and wearing banned religious dress in public.
Aydogan Fuat, also known as Sheik Abdul Kerim Fuat, was arrested while holding a prayer meeting for 40 followers. The police videotaped part of the session and questioned the followers before arresting Mr. Fuat. He has been held without bail pending a hearing on Tuesday. A judge is expected to decide whether Mr. Fuat should be turned over for trial in the state security court.
An official from the American consulate in Izmir, in the southwest, was not allowed today to visit Mr. Fuat, a naturalized American citizen, an assistant said.
A spokesman for the American Embassy in Ankara said privacy laws prohibited him from commenting on whether officials had been refused access to Mr. Fuat.
Mr. Fuat, 44, was born in Turkish Cyprus. He is the spiritual leader of a group with several hundred followers, mostly in New York, and he has conducted services here for many years, said Meryem Brawley, his assistant.
Sufism is a mystic tradition in Islam, dating from the eighth century and the Ottoman Empire. The best known Sufi tradition is dervishes' dancing to achieve a higher state of awareness.
Although Sufism is practiced in parts of Turkey, the state exercises strict control over religion and enforces tough laws against organizations and religious leaders considered outside the mainstream. Last week, the highest court closed the main opposition party after having accused it of being a center for Islamic activities opposed to the secular government.
Ms. Brawley said Mr. Fuat had been charged with violating a law against conducting services for a group of people without a permit and for wearing a turban and a flowing religious coat in public.
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Politicians demand re-opening of theological seminary
Leader of Greek-Orthodox Christians must be trained in Chalki
Idea (18.O6.2001) /HRWF International Secretariat (22.06.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Two German Christian Democrats have called
for the re-opening of the Theological Seminary of Chalki, Turkey, which was closed 30 years ago. Armin Laschet (European MP, Brussels) and Hermann Groehe (German MP, Berlin) have written to the Turkish Government, the European Commission, and the German Government, explaining that a re-opening would demonstrate Turkey's willingness to protect religious minorities.
The seminary, located on Heybeli Island, belongs to the Greek Orthodox Church and serves to train the majority of their clergy. Their church law says that the spiritual leader of the 250 million Orthodox Christians worldwide has to be a Turkish citizen and must be trained in Chalki. If the seminary remains closed, there will one day be no more clergy to fulfill this requirement.
In the opinion of the two Christian Democrats, the re-opening of the school, which had already been planned for 1997, would also facilitate Turkey's approach toward the European Union. The European Charter of Basic Rights, approved in Nice (France) in December 2000, explicitly guarantees religious freedom. Less than 0.2 per cent of Turkey's population are Christians.
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Iranian Christians refused refugee status in Turkey
Convert family could face deportation back to Iran
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (07.05.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (09.05.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - An Iranian Christian family twice refused United Nations refugee status in Turkey were informed today that their case "does not merit reopening" for a third review.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Ankara has confirmed that Iranian convert Mahmoud Erfani's application for re-examination of his family's refugee status will not receive official consideration.
Together with his invalid wife and three daughters, Erfani fled across the Iranian border into Turkey nearly two years ago, on July 1, 1999. Now wheelchair-bound, Erfani's wife was diagnosed seven years ago with advancing multiple sclerosis.
Erfani, who was settled with his family in central Turkey's city of Nevsehir, received UNHCR rejection letters on September 24, 1999, and again on June 26, 2000, declaring that he had not provided sufficient proof that he qualified for religious asylum status. The family's temporary Turkish residence permits issued under UNHCR auspices expired on September 30, 2000.
The UNHCR confirmed its decision on Erfani's case late last week to the Istanbul Interparish Migrants Program (IIMP), a church-sponsored ministry jointly supported by the city's expatriate Protestant, Anglican and Catholic congregations as well as the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate.
"His options are very limited now," an IIMP representative told Compass. Unless full sponsorship is secured for the family through a church in an immigrant-friendly nation like Canada or Australia, Erfani and his family are subject to probable deportation by Turkish authorities back to Iran.
Although Erfani was reportedly sent a letter of deportation ordering his family to leave Turkey in late February, he confirmed to Compass that he had not accepted the document. He is required to sign in weekly at local police headquarters in Nevsehir.
Erfani, 45, and his wife, Atefeh, converted from Islam to Christianity in Mashhad, where they were baptized 20 years ago. Considered Iran's holiest city and a center of Islamic activism, Mashhad is a popular Shiite pilgrimage shrine in northeastern Iran.
Mashhad's two Protestant churches were closed down by Iranian authorities in 1985 and 1988, respectively, forcing the remaining convert believers underground to worship in their homes.
Since convert Christian pastor Hussein Soodmand was executed in Mashhad for apostasy in December, 1990, three other convert Christian families formally charged with apostasy have fled the city and obtained religious asylum in Europe and North America.
In addition, both the Tehran convert pastor who baptized the Erfani couple, as well as the local Presbyterian elder who first brought Erfani to church services in Mashhad, have also obtained religious asylum in Europe.
Erfani, however, could produce no written documents to prove he was under official threat of persecution for his faith by the Iranian government.
After being subjected to a series of terrifying hour-long abductions by local "savama" secret police during the last half of 1998, Erfani was evicted with his family from their home on the former Presbyterian church compound on March 17, 1999. When he learned a few months later that fellow converts were being arrested and called in for questioning about his whereabouts, Erfani secretly packed up his family and fled by bus across the Turkish border.
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Police arrest Turkish Christian in Gaziantep
Convert to Spend Easter Weekend in Jail
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (13.04.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (17.04.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net -- Four security police from Gaziantep's anti-terrorism division raided a Turkish Christian's home on the night of April 11, placing him under arrest for five days pending investigation of accusations against him.
Yashar Tugral, 30, was taken to security police headquarters after officers searched his home and questioned his wife and six other believers present at the time of the arrest.
Police told Tugral that an official complaint had been filed against him, accusing him of using money to attract converts to Christianity.
A witness to the evening raid stated that none of the believers present were "intimidated by the arrogant and threatening manner of the police chief, nor by the submachine gun toted by his assistant." Tugral's wife reportedly cautioned the police chief, "I'm entrusting him to you. If anything happens to him, I'll hold you responsible."
One of Tugral's friends was allowed to take him food and visit him yesterday, while he was under detention at police headquarters. "He was in good spirits, and they haven't mistreated him physically," the friend told Compass today. "But they reacted very angrily when I tried to give him a New Testament to have with him to read."
Tugral told his friend that the morning after his arrest, he had been taken before the state prosecutor, who ordered him held for five days while the accusations against him were investigated. The detained Christian was transferred this afternoon to the local Gaziantep Prison, where he will be held until Monday, April 16.
Tugral is active in a Protestant Christian congregation in Gaziantep closed down just two weeks ago by order of the local security police. The authorities declared that the location where the 30-member church has met for the past 18 months could not be designated as a legal place of public worship due to zoning and other restrictions.
The jailed Christian was to have led Easter worship celebrations in a temporary Gaziantep location this weekend. When he was arrested, his church considered postponing the program. "Who feels like celebrating Easter with one of our brothers behind bars?" one fellow Christian commented. "Yet what better time than Holy Week for our brother to share in the sufferings of our Lord!"
Tugral is an employee of Kaya Publishing Company, registered in Turkey as an official book distribution company since 1996. He was baptized as a Christian in May 1998 and formally changed the religious designation on his national identity card from Muslim to Christian last year. Tugral is married with two daughters.
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Syrian Orthodox priest acquitted in Diyarbakir trial
Controversial charges on genocide allegations dropped
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (05.04.2001) HRWF International Secretariat (06.04.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A state security court in eastern Turkey acquitted Syrian Orthodox priest Yusuf Akbulut today on charges of "provoking religious enmity" by his comments recorded and published last October in the Turkish media.
The parish priest of St. Mary's Church in Diyarbakir, Fr. Akbulut had been indicted for declaring to the Turkish press that his minority Christian community had been among the victims of the alleged Armenian genocide carried out by Turks in 1915.
In today's third and final hearing on the case, the state prosecutor declared that analysis of a video recording of the priest's comments indicated that this case was "an issue of freedom of thought." Although Fr. Akbulut had in fact made the statements quoted in the Turkish press, the prosecutor observed, these privately stated opinions did not constitute a public attempt to incite hatred.
Defense attorney Abdul Kadir Pekdemir had argued that certain journalists, who had tried in an unethical manner to contrive a sensational scoop from the clergyman's informal comments, had deliberately targeted his client. Fr. Akbulut had testified that he refused to be interviewed and agreed only to talk to the journalists "off the record."
Accordingly, with no proof found to substantiate the indictment, the prosecutor asked the court to acquit the defendant.
The judicial bench required less than five minutes of consultation before announcing their verdict. Many observers in the courtroom reportedly broke into applause when the presiding judge announced the acquittal.
"This is a very positive and important decision for Turkey," Pekdemir told Compass by telephone from Diyarbakir. "I believe it can only help our relations with Europe, to emphasize the direction we are going to encourage and strengthen freedom of thought among all our citizens."
Although a number of international observers and local press attended the previous hearings on December 21 and February 22, today's courtroom was even more crowded, an observer told Compass. "There was a large Swedish delegation and two members of the German Parliament, along with other diplomatic representatives, and lots of press people," the source said.
Fr. Akbulut, 36, had been arrested and interrogated for 18 hours by security police on October 5, the day after the newspaper and TV reports quoting him were released. He subsequently appeared before State Prosecutor Oner Tuncay Ipek, who issued an indictment against him on October 18. If convicted of violating Article 312 of the Turkish penal code, the priest could have been jailed for up to three years.
Since last fall, various foreign governments have tabled resolutions labeling the death of Armenians during World War I as genocide. Seen as a political ploy, the "genocide resolutions" have sparked a fierce debate within Turkey, where the government categorically rejects the accusations against its Ottoman forebears.
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Turkmen convert prepares to die in prison
Government Vows to 'Break or Destroy' Shageldy Atakov
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (06.02.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (12.02.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Jailed Turkmen Christian Shageldy Atakov told his wife in early February that he did not expect to survive the brutal physical treatment he is suffering in the Seydy prison labor camp in northeastern Turkmenistan.
"He does not expect to live," a German mission with close ties to Atakov's Baptist congregation in Turkmenistan told Keston News Service on February3.
Atakov, 38, reportedly said his farewells to his wife Artygul when she was allowed to visit him on February 3 and 4. "During the visit he was reportedly bruised and battered, his kidneys and liver hurt and he was suffering from jaundice. He could barely walk and frequently lost consciousness," Keston reported.
After two years' incarceration, Atakov suffered early symptoms of a heart attack this past December, and he was sent to the labor camp's sick-bay for a week to recover.
Citing local Baptist sources, the German-based Friedensstimme Mission stated that Atakov had suffered repeated beatings and also served time in the camp's internal prison during January, although no reason was confirmed for the punishment. It was the third time Atakov was known to have been ordered into the feared "shizo" cell at the Seydy camp.
A government amnesty commission that recently visited the camp reportedly told local officials to "break him morally or destroy him physically," Friedensstimme reported. "They have decided to finish him off."
The sources said Atakov had been offered his freedom by the commission under President Saparmurat Niyazov's December 23 amnesty, provided he would swear the oath of allegiance to the president. However, a known requirement for prisoners to benefit from Niyazov's annual amnesty at the close of the Islamic month of Ramadan includes reciting the Muslim creed over the Koran in a local mosque.
The Turkmen Christian has served just over half of a four-year jail sentence on alleged swindling charges, for which he was twice fined an astronomical $12,000 by an Ashgabad court. According to his local Baptist congregation in the Caspian port city of Turkmenbasi, the accusations linked to Atakov's former car sales business were trumped up in an attempt to stop his church activities.
Atakov had been threatened twice by state officials to stop preaching and participating in his church, an unregistered Evangelical Christians-Baptists congregation, before he was arrested at his home on December 18, 1998. After a secret police officer's warning a month earlier, a senior Muslim leader came to his home with a representative of the local religious affairs committee the week before his arrest to reiterate that he faced possible "legal charges" if he persisted.
Three months after his arrest, Atakov was sentenced to two years in jail. But a prosecutor appealed the March 1999 verdict as "too lenient." At the time of his retrial several months later when he was sentenced to two additional years in prison, he had been so harshly beaten that he asked his children not to touch him, because he was in such pain.
Atakov's wife and five children were forcibly deported from their home in Mary last February into internal exile in Kaakhka, where they remain under "village arrest." The secret police orders came after his wife refused to allow their children to bow before the president's portrait in a daily ritual in the public schools.
Atakov's brother Chariyar, also an ethnic convert to Christianity, has been detained and beaten at least twice by security police officials since his brother's arrest. Another brother, Khoshgeldy, was forced to resign his job under pressure, and a younger brother was found hanged under unexplained circumstances in February last year.
"For other former Soviet states, Turkmenistan is becoming a test case of how far one can go in brutalizing religious minorities," Keston director Lawrence Uzzell observed at the beginning of February.
Since 1997, only the officially sanctioned Sunni Muslim and Russian Orthodox communities have escaped harsh government attempts to exterminate all other religious activity. Along with Bahais, Jehovah's Witnesses and Jews, all local Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal and Armenian Christians are denied the right to worship and practice their faith in Turkmenistan.
Hundreds of foreigners suspected of engaging in religious activity have been expelled from the authoritarian Central Asian state, church buildings have been confiscated or bulldozed, and believers of all faiths have been arrested, tortured, fined, fired from their jobs and thrown out of their homes.
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Turkish Christian put on trial for religious slander
Accusers fail to attend Diyarbakir court hearing
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (30.01.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (02.02.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A Turkish Christian went on trial today on criminal charges for allegedly insulting Islam and the prophet Mohammed nine months ago.
According to the indictment, Kemal Timur, 32, had made the alleged insults on May 1, 2000, while distributing New Testaments in front of the Technical Industrial Occupational High School in Diyarbakir, the regional capital of southeast Turkey.
The defendant, who converted from Islam to Christianity four years ago, denied the accusations filed against him. His accusers, three men in their 20s, failed to attend the Diyarbakir court hearing to testify against Timur.
"My religion is the true religion, not yours. Mohammed is a sorcerer," Timur's accusers claimed he had said. Declaring that it was contrary to his beliefs and the teachings of Jesus Christ to show disrespect for someone else's beliefs, Timur told the judge today, "I certainly did not say such things."
Timur told Compass last month that it was his policy while distributing New Testaments to never discuss his Christian faith with passersby. "I tell people I will meet them another time to talk, if they are interested, not there on the street," he said.
Timur had not even been informed until mid December that a case was pending against him for violating Article 175 of the Turkish penal code, which prohibits the slander of God, the prophets, the holy books or an individual believer. Conviction calls for a prison sentence from six months to one year.
Although State Prosecutor Muammer Ozcan issued an official indictment on the case dated October 30, Timur's copy of the indictment was not postmarked until December 12. He received it at his home address on December 15.
Timur told Compass he had no idea who two of his accusers were, except for their names, although the third had been brought forward by local police when they detained him last May. The three were identified in the indictment as Izzet Ikiz, Cevdat Soykan and Oguzhan Onal.
Along with two other Turkish converts, Timur had been detained on May 1 for 24 hours by local police, who said the converts were being arrested on the basis of a citizen's complaint. Although it was Timur's longest detention, it was not his first.
As a member of a small Turkish Protestant fellowship in Diyarbakir, Timur had been actively involved in a New Testament distribution project in Diyarbakir during the first five months of last year. "We gave out about 5,500 New Testaments from January to May," local pastor Ahmet Guvener told Compass.
During those months, Timur had been picked up and questioned by local police "at least eight times," he recalled. But until the last time, the authorities released him after a few hours without pressing charges, he said, since his activities were not breaking any laws.
Timur admitted he was threatened several times by some police officers to stop his distributions. "But I told them what I was doing was not illegal," Timur told Compass, "and that I have the right to do this, because I am not forcing anybody. I am just giving it to whoever wants it."
While under arrest that last time, Timur was beaten severely on the soles of his feet. "I couldn't get a medical report proving that, because they threatened the doctor not to write down anything," he said. "But my feet remained swollen for a week."
Timur said the police told him they were punishing him because they had threatened him to stop, but he had ignored them. "If you keep on," they warned him, "we will do worse."
According to Timur's defense attorney, A. Kadir Pekdemir, his client was questioned closely by the presiding judge today as to whether the convert had any connections with sources outside Turkey, in terms of financial or other support.
"Except for my faith in Jesus Christ, which I share with other Christians," Pekdemir said his client answered, "I have no connections or financial links whatever outside the country."
After questioning Timur on his denial of the stated charges, the judge set March 27 for the next hearing on the case.
"The next time," Pekdemir told Compass, "the complainants are obliged to come. If they do not, the police will be sent to force them to appear."
Timur is married with two children. After his baptism in June 1997, he made an official application to change the religion listed on his national identity card from Muslim to Christian. He only received his new I.D. identifying him as a Christian this past October, he said.
In a similar case last March, two Turkish Christians from the Aegean port city of Izmir were jailed for a month and prosecuted on trumped-up charges of insulting Islam and forcing people to take Christian materials. Both were acquitted when the complainants admitted in court they had been pressured by local gendarme officials to press false charges.
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Turkish Protestant Church Granted Full Legal Status
Istanbul Congregation Celebrates Christmas in New Building
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass Direct (24.01.2001)/ HRWF International Sevretariat (26.01.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Fourteen months after the Istanbul Protestant Church filed for legal status as a religious foundation, Turkey's highest court overruled all previous appeals, giving a green light to establishing the first legally recognized Turkish evangelical church.
The December 7 ruling, issued under Presiding Supreme Court Justice Alparslan Nazlioglu of the 18th Bench of the Turkish Supreme Court, was greeted by the church's pastor as a landmark decision for the country's few thousand Turkish Protestant Christians.
"This begins a new step in Turkey," commented Carlos Madrigal, pastor of the 50-member congregation in Istanbul's Bostanci district and 15-member congregation in Izmit... "This enables the Protestant church in Turkey to step out of the shadows."
Over the past decade, some 20 convert Christian congregations in Turkey have been allowed to register their places of worship as "houses of prayer." Nevertheless, they have been subjected to repeated police harassments over the past 18 months, including disruption of their meetings, police detention of their members and interrogation of their pastors.
"This legal recognition should put a stop to that," the church's legal counsel Murat Cano told Compass. "This is the Supreme Court's final ruling. It cannot be appealed again or abrogated, and it must be upheld."
He admitted, however, that the highest court ruling had overridden several existing statutes of Turkish civil law. The General Directorate of Foundations in Ankara had appealed the Supreme Court's June 9 ruling in favor of the church, declaring that formation of such a religious foundation was forbidden by Turkish codes of law.
"That is correct," Cano told Compass. "But the Supreme Court has in effect superseded these statutes in deference to three criteria of a higher rank."
Cano said the clear-cut "equality clauses" in the Turkish Constitution, together with the U.N. Charter of Human Rights and several other agreements with the European Community which Turkey has signed touching on religious freedom, stand out as the three criteria upon
which the Supreme Court based its decision.
Cano argued in his final written defense on August 3 to the Supreme Court that the church's legal identity could not be classified technically as a "minority foundation." Rather, he said that category related solely to definitions in the 1923 Lausanne Treaty which listed Turkey's Armenian, Greek Orthodox and Jewish citizens as the three "non-Muslim communities" allowed to form "minority foundations."
The Bostanci congregation was able to dedicate and move into its newly renovated church building last month. A formal dedication ceremony, which overflowed the facilities on the afternoon of December 3, was attended by Turkish Christians from all over the country. Special Christmas celebrations on December 24 drew 250 to the church. Sixty of them were visitors from the community, the pastor noted, including civic officials.
Set back off a main thoroughfare on the Asian side of the city, the building is a renovation of one of Istanbul's historic large wooden houses, first built some 60 years ago. Complete with traditional stained-glass windows and wooden pews, the church can seat 180 in its sanctuary and small balcony. In addition to a multi-purpose room downstairs, there is spacefor three church offices.
Just two weeks after the Bostanci church ruling, two sister congregations of Turkish Christians in Ankara submitted a similar application for foundation status.
According to Pastor Ihsan Ozbek, 16 Turkish citizens who are members of the two churches filed the petition in Ankara on December 21. The pending Salvation Churches Foundation would represent some 150 Protestant Christians worshipping regularly in the two congregations. The application will be subject to its initial review before an Ankara court on March 3,Ozbek said.
In addition to legal identity, foundation status gives a church the right to appoint official pastors and pay their salaries, legally collect tithes and offerings, provide education, produce its own publications and buy and build church buildings.
Several other congregations remain cautious, however. "We're waiting to see just what sort of restrictions come along with this," one convert pastor told Compass. Another admitted that their small congregation did not yet have the finances required to set up such a foundation.
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Head scarf ban prompts stabbing
AP (10.01.2001) / HRWF International Secretariat (19.01.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A professor was stabbed after defending the state's ban on Islamic-style head scarves, newspapers reported Tuesday.
Zekeriya Beyaz, theology dean of Istanbul's Marmara University, told female students Monday that they would have to abide by the law and take off their head scarves if they wanted to attend class, the Sabah newspaper reported.
An unidentified assailant stabbed Beyaz three times in the chest as students were leaving the hall, newspapers said. The wounds were not life-threatening.
Police detained the assailant and dozens of students after the attack.
Women wearing head scarves frequently protest the ban outside Turkey's universities.
Turkey, an overwhelmingly Muslim country, is governed by strict secular laws. The state, backed by the powerful military, sees any move to give religion more prominence in Turkish society as an attempt to undermine the secular state.
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