ISTANBUL, December 9 (CDN) — A large-scale Al Qaeda plot to bomb “all the churches in Ankara,” as well as the Turkish Parliament and U.S. Embassy in the Turkish capital, was made public today. In an exclusive splashed across the front page of the daily Taraf newspaper, ....
ISTANBUL, November 11 (CDN) — Just hours before a deadly 7.2 earthquake struck Turkey’s southeast on Oct. 23, well over 3,000 visitors crowded into an ancient Armenian cathedral in nearby Diyarbakir for Sunday mass. The mass was the first worship service in decades in ....
ISTANBUL, August 30 (CDN) — The Turkish government made a historic U-turn in state policy this past weekend, issuing an official decree inviting Turkey’s Christian and Jewish communities to reclaim their long-confiscated religious properties. Saturday’s (Aug. 27) decree comes ....
ISTANBUL, March 18 (CDN) — In simultaneous operations in nine different provinces of Turkey, authorities yesterday arrested 20 people suspected of playing a role in the murder of three Christians in Malatya in 2007, according to local news reports. Zekeriya Oz, chief ....
ISTANBUL, March 15 (CDN) — Though the horrific scale of the 2007 Malatya murders has not been repeated in Turkey’s Protestant church, a recent report shows harassment continues to be a daily problem for the country’s Christians and churches. Discrimination, slander ....
ISTANBUL, December 20 (CDN) — Attorneys prosecuting the murder of three Christians in southeastern Turkey are making progress linking the knifemen who slayed them to the masterminds who put them up to it, an attorney representing the family of one of the victims said Friday ....
ISTANBUL, October 21 (CDN) — A court in southeast Turkey on Friday (Oct. 15) ordered the arrest of a suspected “middleman” linking the murder of three Christian men to alleged high-level masterminds. The arrest order came after the testimonies of a former prison inmate and an ....
ISTANBUL, October 19 (CDN) — 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. Four years ago this month, ....
ISTANBUL, October 5 (CDN) — Christians across the Middle East said they will be the ones to suffer if a group of anti-Islamic protestors in the United States goes through with its plans to publicly tear up or otherwise desecrate the Quran. They roundly condemned ....
ISTANBUL, May 28 (CDN) — The 11th hearing of a case of two Turkish Christians accused of "insulting Turkishness" closed just minutes after it opened this week, due to lack of any progress. Prosecutors produced no new evidence against Hakan Tastan and Turan ....
MALATYA, Turkey, April 21 (CDN) — On the eve of three-year commemorations of the murders of three Christians in southeast Turkey, defense lawyers’ absence and new evidence kept a Malatya court from concluding the case here on Thursday (April 15). Two defense lawyers ....
MALATYA, Turkey, February 24 (CDN) — On Friday (Feb. 19) judges eager to wrap up the trial over the murder of three Christians here rejected plaintiff appeals to investigate the suspected masterminds behind the stabbing deaths. At the 24th hearing regarding the 2007 murders of Turkish ....
SILIVRI, Turkey, February 15 (CDN) — Barely five minutes into the latest hearing of a more than three-year-old case against two Christians accused of “insulting Turkishness and Islam,” the session was over.The prosecution had failed to produce their three final witnesses to testify ....
ISTANBUL, February 12 (CDN) — An Istanbul court has ordered the release of a jailed Turk who publicly threatened and held a knife to the throat of a Christian he attacked six months ago. In a ruling on Wednesday (Feb. 10), the Kadikoy Seventh Court of First Instance convicted ....
ISTANBUL, February 5 (CDN) — A European court on Tuesday (Feb. 2) ordered Turkey to remove the religious affiliation section from citizens’ identification cards, calling the practice a violation of human rights. Religious minorities and in particular Christian converts in ....
ISTANBUL, December 29 (CDN) — Malatya’s Third Criminal Court on Friday (Dec. 25) took further steps to connect the murders of three Christians in southeastern Turkey to a Turkish military plan to destabilize the pro-Islamic government. Evidence surfaced in Turkish ....
ISTANBUL, December 18 (CDN) — In a decision many hope will lead to greater religious freedom in Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found that a Turkish court ruling barring a church from starting a foundation violated the congregation’s right to freedom of ....
ISTANBUL, December 16 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, December 16 (Compass Direct News) – Chilling allegations emerged last month of a detailed plot by Turkish naval officers to perpetrate threats and violence against the nation’s non-Muslims in an effort to implicate and unseat Turkey’s ....
ISTANBUL, December 15 (CDN) — In response to a Swiss vote banning the construction of new mosque minarets, a group of Muslims this month went into a church building in eastern Turkey and threatened to kill a priest unless he tore down its bell tower, according to an advocacy ....
ISTANBUL, December 4 (CDN) — More than half of the population of Muslim-majority Turkey opposes members of other religions holding meetings or publishing materials to explain their faith, according to a recently issued survey. Fully 59 percent of those surveyed said ....
MALATYA, Turkey, November 17 (CDN) — Judges and prosecutors in the trial regarding the murder of three Christians in this southeastern city in Turkey on Friday (Nov. 13) renewed their request for help from the Istanbul High Criminal Court as reports mounted linking the slayings to top ....
MALATYA, Turkey, October 22 (CDN) — The head of Turkey’s police intelligence department was removed on Friday (Oct. 16) amid allegations that he failed to prevent the murder of the Christian editor of an Armenian weekly and the slayings of three Christians in this city in southeastern ....
SILIVRI, Turkey, October 16 (CDN) — After three prosecution witnesses testified yesterday that they didn’t even know two Christians on trial for “insulting Turkishness and Islam,” a defense lawyer called the trial a “scandal.” Speaking after yesterday’s hearing in the drawn-out ....
ISTANBUL, August 25 (CDN) — Turkish murder suspect Emre Gunaydin admitted in court last week that he had again committed perjury in the trial over the savage murders of three Christians in southeast Turkey. Gunaydin, 21, faced off in Malatya’s Third Criminal Court on ....
August 25 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, August 25 (Compass Direct News) – Turkish murder suspect Emre Gunaydin admitted in court last week that he had again committed perjury in the trial over the savage murders of three Christians in southeast Turkey. Gunaydin, 21, faced off in ....
ISTANBUL, August 6 (CDN) — In a bizarre show of Turkish nationalism, a young Muslim here took a Christian Turk at knife point, draped his head with the national flag and threatened to slit the throat of the “missionary dog” in broad daylight earlier this week. Yasin ....
August 6 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, August 6 (Compass Direct News) – In a bizarre show of Turkish nationalism, a young Muslim here took a Christian Turk at knife point, draped his head with the national flag and threatened to slit the throat of the “missionary dog” in broad ....
ISTANBUL, July 28 (CDN) — On a crowded street here last week a German businessman died after a Turk with a history of mental problems stabbed him for being a Christian. Witnesses saw İbrahim Akyol, 26, stab Gregor Kerkeling in the chest on July 20 at 10:50 a.m. after ....
July 28 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, July 28 (Compass Direct News) – On a crowded street here last week a German businessman died after a Turk with a history of mental problems stabbed him for being a Christian. Witnesses saw Ýbrahim Akyol, 26, stab Gregor Kerkeling in the ....
MALATYA, Turkey, July 21 (CDN) — Under the pretext of recovering from medical treatment he received earlier this month, a key suspect in the murders of three Christians in southeast Turkey dodged court for the second time, further stalling the legal process, prosecuting attorneys ....
July 21 (CDN) — MALATYA, Turkey, July 21 (Compass Direct News) – Under the pretext of recovering from medical treatment he received earlier this month, a key suspect in the murders of three Christians in southeast Turkey dodged court for the second time, further ....
MALATYA, Turkey, June 25 (CDN) — A suspected “middleman” between the alleged masterminds and young executors in the stabbing murders of three Christians here failed to appear at a hearing on Friday (June 19) because of a procedural error.The state prosecutor’s office failed to set ....
June 25 (CDN) — MALATYA, Turkey, June 25 (Compass Direct News) – A suspected “middleman” between the alleged masterminds and young executors in the stabbing murders of three Christians here failed to appear at a hearing on Friday (June 19) because of a procedural ....
ISTANBUL, June 15 (CDN) — Since Iranian native Nasser Ghorbani fled to Turkey seven years ago, he has been unable to keep a job for more than a year – eventually his co-workers would ask why he didn’t come to the mosque on Fridays, and one way or another they’d learn that he ....
June 15 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, June 15 (Compass Direct News) – Since Iranian native Nasser Ghorbani fled to Turkey seven years ago, he has been unable to keep a job for more than a year – eventually his co-workers would ask why he didn’t come to the mosque on Fridays, ....
MALATYA, Turkey, May 28 (CDN) — Prosecution efforts to tie the murderers of three Christians here to state-linked masterminds were set back on Friday (May 22) when the alleged ring-leader unexpectedly contradicted his previous testimony implicating a suspected “middleman.” As ....
May 28 (CDN) — MALATYA, Turkey, May 28 (Compass Direct News) – Prosecution efforts to tie the murderers of three Christians here to state-linked masterminds were set back on Friday (May 22) when the alleged ring-leader unexpectedly contradicted his previous ....
April 16 (CDN) — Necati Aydin, Ugur Yuksel, Tilmann GeskeMALATYA, Turkey, April 15 (Compass Direct News) – Two years after the murder of three Christians in this city in southeastern Turkey, lawyers at a hearing here on Monday (April 13) uncovered important ....
MALATYA, Turkey, April 15 (CDN) — Two years after the murder of three Christians in this city in southeastern Turkey, lawyers at a hearing here on Monday (April 13) uncovered important information on the role that local security forces played in the slaughter. At the 16th hearing of ....
March 27 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, March 27 (Compass Direct News) – Fearing that a court-ordered fine of two Turkish Christians here for “illegal collection of funds” would set a precedent crippling to churches, their lawyer plans to take the case to a European court. Hakan ....
ISTANBUL, March 26 (CDN) — Fearing that a court-ordered fine of two Turkish Christians here for “illegal collection of funds” would set a precedent crippling to churches, their lawyer plans to take the case to a European court. Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal each paid the fine ....
ISTANBUL, March 20 (CDN) — Turkey’s decision last month to try two Christians under a revised version of a controversial law for “insulting Turkishness” because they spoke about their faith came as a blow to the country’s record of freedom of speech and religion. A Silivri ....
March 20 (CDN) — Turan Topal and Hakan TastanISTANBUL, March 20 (Compass Direct News) – Turkey’s decision last month to try two Christians under a revised version of a controversial law for “insulting Turkishness” because they spoke about their faith came as a blow ....
February 24 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, February 24 (Compass Direct News) – The identities of the middlemen linking the attackers and the alleged masterminds in the murder of three Christians in Malatya, Turkey are expected to take clearer focus following the latest hearing. ....
ISTANBUL, February 24 (CDN) — The identities of the middlemen linking the attackers and the alleged masterminds in the murder of three Christians in Malatya, Turkey are expected to take clearer focus following the latest hearing. “These five troubled youths didn’t wake up one ....
ISTANBUL, February 17 (CDN) — Following threats from Muslim nationalists, a Turkish Bible Society bookshop in the southern city of Adana was vandalized for the second time in a week on Thursday (Feb. 12).Security camera footage shows two youths attacking the storefront of the ....
February 17 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, February 17 (Compass Direct News) – Following threats from Muslim nationalists, a Turkish Bible Society bookshop in the southern city of Adana was vandalized for the second time in a week on Thursday (Feb. 12). Security camera footage ....
February 12 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, February 12 (Compass Direct News) – A Turkish court has charged two more men for instigating the murder of three Christians in Malatya in 2007 – a former volunteer worker at the Christian publishing house where they were killed, and ....
ISTANBUL, February 12 (CDN) — A Turkish court has charged two more men for instigating the murder of three Christians in Malatya in 2007 – a former volunteer worker at the Christian publishing house where they were killed, and an ex-journalist suspected of ties to a group that ....
ISTANBUL, January 22 (CDN) — Syriac Christians in southeastern Turkey say a land dispute over the historic Mor Gabriel Monastery is part of a larger system of discrimination against the religious minority in this overwhelmingly Islamic country. Muslim residents of southeastern ....
January 22 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, January 22 (Compass Direct News) – Syriac Christians in southeastern Turkey say a land dispute over the historic Mor Gabriel Monastery is part of a larger system of discrimination against the religious minority in this overwhelmingly ....
January 20 (CDN) — MALATYA, Turkey, January 20 (Compass Direct News) – Lawyers in the case of three Christians who were murdered for their faith here are lining up witnesses in an effort to expand the accused from five young suspects to subversive forces at the top of ....
MALATYA, Turkey, January 20 (CDN) — Lawyers in the case of three Christians who were murdered for their faith here are lining up witnesses in an effort to expand the accused from five young suspects to subversive forces at the top of state power. Evidence in recent hearings suggests ....
ISTANBUL, January 12 (CDN) — A judge in Turkey sentenced a 19-year-old Muslim to four-and-a-half years in prison on Jan. 5 for stabbing a Catholic priest in the coastal city of Izmir in December 2007. Ramazan Bay, then 17, had met with Father Adriano Franchini, a 65-year-old ....
January 12 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, January 12 (Compass Direct News) – A judge in Turkey sentenced a 19-year-old Muslim to four-and-a-half years in prison on Jan. 5 for stabbing a Catholic priest in the coastal city of Izmir in December 2007. Ramazan Bay, then 17, had met ....
December 15 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, December 15 (Compass Direct News) – In the city of Samsun on the north coast of Turkey, the beleaguered congregation of the Agape Church Association struggles against local Islamic hostility toward its presence. In the last three years ....
November 25 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, November 25 (Compass Direct News) – Last week’s court hearing on the bloody murder of three Christians in Turkey’s southeastern city of Malatya paved the way for further investigations into the connection between the five defendants and ....
November 12 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, November 12 (Compass Direct News) – Two years into a trial for “insulting Turkishness” that has been light on evidence and heavy on mud-slinging at Turkey’s Protestant community, a court proceeding last week brought no progress. Another ....
October 21 (CDN) — MALATYA, Turkey, October 21 (Compass Direct News) – Lawyers and judges in the case of three Christians murdered here in April 2007 are continuing to investigate whether the attack was masterminded by troubled youths or shadowy elements of the ....
September 15 (CDN) — MALATYA, Turkey, September 15 (Compass Direct News) – Testimony in the murder case of three Christians here indicates the attack was premeditated for at least two suspects, despite the defense team’s insistence that the killers acted spontaneously. ....
August 22 (CDN) — Lawyer Ozkan Yucel at courthouseMALATYA, Turkey, August 22 (Compass Direct News) – The five young Turkish men accused of torturing and killing three Christians in Malatya last year may have been incited by members of a vast political ....
July 9 (CDN) — Lawyers Ozkan Yucel and Erdal Dogan (right) outside courtroomMALATYA, Turkey, July 9 (Compass Direct News) – Despite new court testimony naming a web of ranking local officials behind the slaughter of three Christians in Malatya last year, ....
June 26 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, June 26 (Compass Direct News) – Twenty months after two Turkish Christians went on trial for allegedly “insulting Turkishness and Islam,” a local criminal court has requested a Justice Ministry review of one of three charges in the case. ....
June 10 (CDN) — MALATYA, Turkey, June 10 (Compass Direct News) – All seven suspects on trial for the brutal murder of three Christians in Turkey in April 2007 appeared in court yesterday – each one protesting his innocence and incriminating one or more of the ....
June 5 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, June 5 (Compass Direct News) – Testimony taken by Malatya prosecutors last week corroborates a letter e-mailed to Turkish Protestant church leaders a year ago naming alleged perpetrators behind the savage murder of three Christians in ....
May 14 (CDN) — Necati Aydin, Ugur Yuksel and Tilmann GeskeISTANBUL, May 14 (Compass Direct News) – All five culprits arrested last spring for the savage murder of three Christians in eastern Turkey have proclaimed their innocence, declaring they did not personally ....
May 7 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, May 7 (Compass Direct News) – Three men, one of them armed with a gun and wearing gloves, threatened a Protestant church and its pastor in the Turkish capital city of Ankara yesterday. The culprits fled in a car before police could be ....
April 24 (CDN) — Susanne Geske, children at memorialISTANBUL, April 24 (Compass Direct News) – A year after the brutal martyrdom of three Christians for their faith in Malatya, Turkey’s tiny Christian community gathered quietly this past week to honor their memories ....
April 17 (CDN) — Necati Aydin, Tilmann Geske and Ugur Yuksel MALATYA, Turkey, April 17 (Compass Direct News) – On the eve of the one-year mark of the slaughter of three Christians here, the impartiality of the judges in the case is in doubt, and the young men on ....
March 18 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, March 18 (Compass Direct News) – The fourth trial hearing yesterday against the murderers of three Christians in southeast Turkey was postponed for another month after court clerks failed to file a request to replace judges accused of ....
March 17 (CDN) — Turan Topal and Hakan TastanSILIVRI, Turkey, March 17 (Compass Direct News) – In an effort to prolong the trial of two Turkish converts to Christianity accused of “denigrating Islam and Turkishness,” three gendarme soldiers on Thursday (March 13) ....
February 28 (CDN) — Plaintiff lawyer Özkan Yücel SoyluMALATYA, Turkey, February 28 (Compass Direct News) – Lawyers representing the families of three Christians tortured and slaughtered with knives in eastern Turkey last April demanded this week that the three-member ....
January 23 (CDN) — CNNTURK interview of Geske and AydinMALATYA, Turkey, January 23 (Compass Direct News) – The first of five young Turkish Muslims on trial for torturing and killing three Christians in eastern Turkey took the witness stand last week, vigorously ....
January 8 (CDN) — Pastor Orhan Picaklar ISTANBUL, January 8 (Compass Direct News) – A Turkish judge in the Black Sea coastal city of Samsun on Sunday (January 6) set free a minor who confessed to making telephone death threats against a pastor and his church, a day ....
January 2 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, January 2 (Compass Direct News) – Turkish police authorities over the weekend arrested a young suspect allegedly plotting to assassinate a Christian pastor in Antalya during the Christmas and New Year holidays. Pastor Ramazan Arkan, 30, ....
December 17 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, December 17 (Compass Direct News) – A 19-year-old Muslim youth stabbed an Italian priest in the stomach yesterday after Sunday services outside a Catholic church in Turkey. Father Adriano Franchini, 65, was hospitalized overnight in the ....
December 11 (CDN) — ISTANBUL, December 11 (Compass Direct News) – Reacting to a storm of media reporting seriously flawed conduct by state prosecutors in Malatya, the Turkish Interior Ministry last weekend opened a judicial investigation into alleged collusion of ....
November 30 (CDN) — Father Edip Daniel SavciISTANBUL, November 30 (Compass Direct News) – A Syrian Orthodox priest kidnapped in southeastern Turkey Wednesday (November 28) walked free from his captors this afternoon, a church source said. Father Edip Daniel Savci, 42, ....
November 30 (CDN) — Turan Topal and Hakan Tastan at courtSILIVRI, Turkey, November 30 (Compass Direct News) – Bowing to demands of prosecution lawyers, yesterday the judge presiding over a contrived case against two Turkish converts to Christianity for “insulting ....
November 29 (CDN) — Father Edip Daniel Savci (Photo: Gabi Afram)ISTANBUL, November 29 (Compass Direct News) – Kidnappers of a Syrian Orthodox priest ....
November 27 (CDN) — Observers question plaintiffs' lawyersMALATYA, Turkey, November 27 (Compass Direct News) – At the opening day trial of three Christians tortured and killed here in April, attorneys for the bereft families accused prosecutors of “sloppy” ....
November 5 (CDN) — Necati Aydin, Tilmann Geske and Ugur Yuksel ISTANBUL, November 5 (Compass Direct News) – Malatya’s Third Criminal Court has set November 23 to open the trial of the confessed murderers of Turkish convert Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and a ....
October 5 (CDN) — LOS ANGELES, October 5 (Compass Direct News) – Turkish Protestants have reported increasing attacks and threats in recent months despite claims by President Abdullah Gul this week that Christians in Turkey are not targeted. Believers told Compass ....
October 4 (CDN) — LOS ANGELES, October 4 (Compass Direct News) – A new judge has prolonged the case of two Turkish converts to Christianity after his predecessor resigned under pressure from the plaintiffs’ ultranationalist lawyer. At a September 26 hearing, his ....
October 1 (CDN) — Esther, Semse and Elisha AydinISTANBUL, October 1 (Compass Direct News) – Last Sunday night on the way home from church services, a sad little voice came from the back seat of the car. “Mommy, I miss my Daddy so much. Can’t Jesus bring him back to ....
September 28 (CDN) — Christians Aydin, Geske and YukselISTANBUL, September 28 (Compass Direct News) – An e-mail message to several Turkish Protestant leaders in June surfaced in the Turkish press last week, revealing the names of Malatya officials alleged to have ....
September 14 (CDN) — Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal LOS ANGELES, September 14 (Compass Direct News) – A Turkish judge announced his withdrawal this week from the case of two Christians charged with “insulting Turkishness.” Judge Neset Eren said at a hearing on Wednesday ....
September 4 (CDN) — Arsonist Semih Sahin shooting into the airISTANBUL, September 4 (Compass Direct News) – Police in Turkey’s western city of Izmit have arrested a man who set a fire early yesterday morning at the entrance of the local Protestant church and then shot ....
July 19 (CDN) — Turan Topal and Hakan Tastan ISTANBUL, July 19 (Compass Direct News) – A Turkish state prosecutor demanded acquittal yesterday for two Turkish Christians on trial for “insulting Turkishness” under the nation’s controversial Article 301. State ....
July 3 (CDN) — Hakan Tastan at Necati Aydin's funeralISTANBUL, July 3 (Compass Direct News) – In a bizarre twist in the criminal prosecution of two Turkish Christians for “insulting Turkish identity,” an administrative district authority in Istanbul has ordered ....
May 22 (CDN) — May 22 (Compass Direct News) – Turkish newspapers have started leaking extensive details from secret police interrogations of the last of five suspects charged with murdering three Christians in Malatya last month. In one of the most alarming ....
April 27 (CDN) — David Byle ISTANBUL, April 27 (Compass Direct News) – Police jailed four Christian street evangelists in Istanbul for “missionary activity” this week, even as government officials openly defended the right of all religious groups to carry out ....
April 19 (CDN) — Necati Aydin, Tilman Geske & Ugur YukselISTANBUL, April 19 (Compass Direct News) – In a gruesome assault against Turkey’s tiny Christian community, five young Muslim Turks entered a Christian publishing office in the southeastern province of ....
February 6 (CDN) — Fr. Santoro's family and Catholic ClergyTRABZON, Turkey, February 6 (Compass Direct News) – Turkey’s Catholics extended reconciliation to this tense Black Sea city yesterday, exactly one year after a local teenager shot an Italian priest while he ....
January 31 (CDN) — Heightened Security at January 29 Trial ISTANBUL, January 31 (Compass Direct News) – Strict security controls surrounded the second court hearing for two Turkish Christians facing criminal charges for insulting Turkish identity under the ....
January 30 (CDN) — Windows destroyed by vandalsISTANBUL, January 30 (Compass Direct News) – Assailants on Turkey’s Black Sea coast vandalized a Protestant church this weekend, days after nationalists from the region murdered a well-known Armenian journalist. Attackers ....
December 12 (CDN) — Armenian Patriarch Mesrob IIDecember 12 (Compass Direct News) – Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer has blocked a key piece of reform legislation passed last month to broaden religious freedoms in Turkey. A staunch secularist, Sezer sent the ....
December 8 (CDN) — Cameramen at Press CenterDecember 8 (Compass Direct News) – Pope Benedict XVI is still soaking up the success of last week’s historic trip to Turkey, but Orthodox Christian volunteer workers say that beneath the surface of the four-day visit was a ....
December 7 (CDN) — Pope Benedict XVIDecember 7 (Compass Direct News) – In a year that saw eight violent attacks on Christians in Turkey and widespread uproar over a papal speech deemed derogatory to Islam, many Turkish Catholics worried that Pope Benedict XVI’s visit ....
December 6 (CDN) — Pope Benedict XVI in TurkeyDecember 6 (Compass Direct News) – Ankara’s top government religious official accused Pope Benedict XVI yesterday of “doing injustice to Turkey” by declaring after his historic visit to Turkey last week that the country’s ....
November 27 (CDN) — Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal with PressNovember 27 (Compass Direct News) – A criminal trial against two Turkish Christians accused of “insulting Turkishness” and inciting hatred against Islam grabbed national media coverage as religious tensions ....
November 9 (CDN) — Pastor Mehmet Sahin Coban November 9 (Compass Direct News) – Unidentified assailants hurled six Molotov cocktails at a Protestant place of worship in western Turkey last Saturday (November 4), breaking windows and inflicting minor damages on the ....
October 31 (CDN) — Turan Topal and Hakan TastanOctober 31 (Compass Direct News) – A Turkish prosecutor slapped criminal charges against two converts to Christianity earlier this month, accusing them of “insulting Turkishness,” inciting hatred against Islam and ....
October 11 (CDN) — Bishop Luigi Padovese, apostolic vicar of Anatolia October 11 (Compass Direct News) – Eight months after an Italian Catholic priest was shot to death in his church along Turkey’s Black Sea coast, the Trabzon Criminal Court yesterday sentenced his ....
July 19 (CDN) — July 19 (Compass Direct News) – Nationalists in Turkey’s northern city of Samsun have stepped up a two-year campaign against a Protestant church, denouncing in the media the legally registered congregation’s right to exist.Izzet Altunbas, chairman ....
July 5 (CDN) — Father Pierre Brunissen July 5 (Compass Direct) – A schizophrenic with a history of feeding Turkish media false rumors of proselytizing by Father Pierre Brunissen knifed the elderly French Catholic priest on Sunday night (July 2), though the lead ....
April 20 (CDN) — Ismet and Gonul GunyelApril 20 (Compass Direct) – Fanned by local media and a Muslim mufti, an anti-missionary witch-hunt targeting Christians in Turkey’s eastern city of Bingol left a Muslim woman beaten in her tailor shop last month while police ....
April 13 (CDN) — April 13 (Compass Direct) – Denied a work permit for being a “threat for the national security,” a German Christian believes that his family’s openly Christian activities prompted Turkey to label them missionaries and deny them entrance in February. ....
March 17 (CDN) — Vahit Yildiz (left) at Bursa bookstallMarch 17 (Compass) – In a country where media often portray the tiny Protestant community negatively, some news organizations here took notice when Muslims threatened Christians at a book fair last week. ....
March 16 (CDN) — St. Antoine’s Catholic ChurchMarch 16 (Compass) – A Turkish Muslim shouting insults against Christianity pulled a long butcher knife on two priests and a group of teenagers last Saturday evening (March 11) at a Latin Catholic church in Mersin, ....
February 10 (CDN) — Pelatre (left) and Lucibello distribute the Eucharist February 10 (Compass) – Amid global debate about cartoon depictions of the prophet Muhammad first printed in Denmark, Muslims and Christians came together in Istanbul yesterday for the memorial ....
February 7 (CDN) — February 7 (Compass) – A 16-year-old assailant shot and killed an Italian Catholic priest in the Turkish city of Trabzon on Sunday, shouting the opening phrase of the Muslim call to prayer before he fled the scene. Father Andrea Santoro, 60, was ....
January 20 (CDN) — Adana church January 20 (Compass) – Five young men attacked and threatened to kill a Protestant church leader in Turkey’s fourth largest city after Sunday worship services January 8. Kamil Kiroglu, 29, was beaten unconscious twice along the street ....
December 19 (CDN) — Yakup Cindilli in court in 2004December 19 (Compass) – For the third time in six months, Turkish Christian Yakup Cindilli in has failed to appear at court hearings against the ultra-nationalists who beat him into a coma two years ago for ....
December 2 (CDN) — Vandalism at St. Paul'sDecember 2 (Compass) – Turkey’s Protestant Christian minorities experienced fresh harassment this past week from both security police and the judiciary, along with an attempt by vandals to set on fire one local church. Last ....
October 26 (CDN) — October 26 (Compass) – A family of four Iranian converts to Christianity received a last-minute reprieve from forcible deportation back to Iran by Turkish authorities over the past week. The exceptional turnaround was attributed to direct U.S. ....
October 11 (CDN) — October 11 (Compass) – A family of Iranian converts to Christianity faces jail time, the death sentence and the forced marriage of their daughter if Turkish authorities forcibly deport them back to Iran next week after nearly three years of failed ....
September 30 (CDN) — September 30 (Compass) – The unchecked passions of two young Greek Orthodox Christians in rural Turkey last month showed how a single misstep can result in the persecution of the larger community. More than 100 residents of the Turkish village of ....
September 19 (CDN) — Yakup CindilliSeptember 19 (Compass) -- State medical examiners in Istanbul have been ordered to provide a second opinion in October on whether Turkish Christian Yakup Cindilli sustained permanent damage from being beaten into a coma by nationalists ....
August 30 (CDN) — August 30 (Compass) -- Bektas Erdogan never expected his Christian faith of 11 years to jeopardize his career as a fashion designer in Turkey. Hired five months ago by a designer jeans company in the Beyazit district of Istanbul, Erdogan was assured ....
June 30 (CDN) — Yakup CindilliJune 30 (Compass) -- A criminal court in northwestern Turkey will assess new medical reports next week on the condition of Turkish Christian Yakup Cindilli, still recovering from severe injuries inflicted by ultra-nationalists accusing ....
June 22 (CDN) — June 22 (Compass) -- For the past six months, both Islamist and nationalist circles in Turkey have launched strident broadsides against what even state officials are calling “dangerous” Christian activities. In the context of a conservative backlash ....
June 22 (CDN) — June 22 (Compass) -- Intelligence agencies within the Turkish state have concluded in a new report that Christian missionary activities inside the country have a second motive, parallel to their spread of Christian propaganda. According to a June 11 ....
June 7 (CDN) — June 7 (Compass) -- In step with months of intense media focus on missionary activities in Turkey, the government’s Religious Affairs Directorate coordinated a symposium this spring in conjunction with a local university to present academic research ....
June 7 (CDN) — Besiktas Protestant Church June 7 (Compass) -- On Istanbul’s official municipality site map, the Besiktas Protestant Church is marked in green, signifying a building used for religious purposes. So for all practical purposes, it is clear that the ....
May 19 (CDN) — Swastika painted on pastor's doorMay 19 (Compass) -- A Protestant pastor in the Turkish industrial city of Izmit woke up yesterday morning to find a huge red swastika painted on his apartment door, with a handwritten hate letter shoved underneath. ....
November 18 (CDN) — November 18 (Compass) -- A committee acting under the Turkish Ministry of Culture has approved legal zoning of the Diyarbakir Evangelical Church, granting formal approval for the first new Protestant church to be built in southeastern Turkey since ....
November 18 (CDN) — Pastor Ahmet GuvenerNovember 18 (Compass) — After three years of repeated stonewalling, a Diyarbakir committee under the Turkish Ministry of Culture has dropped all objections and approved legal zoning of the Diyarbakir Evangelical Church.The ....
August 18 (CDN) — Burned room at Diyarbakir churchAugust 9 (Compass) — An apparently deranged young Turk barricaded himself inside the Diyarbakir Evangelical Church in southeast Turkey on July 19, breaking windows and setting fire to curtains, Bibles and cassette ....
August 18 (CDN) — Yakup Cindilli at court in JanuaryAugust 18 (Compass) — Nine months after he was beaten into a coma by ultra-nationalists opposed to his conversion to Christianity, Turkish Christian Yakup Cindilli has for the first time managed to make personal ....
August 18 (CDN) — August 18 (Compass) — Nine months after he was beaten into a prolonged coma by ultra-nationalists opposed to his conversion to Christianity, Yakup Cindilli, 33, has for the first time made personal contact with Protestant Christian acquaintances in ....
August 9 (CDN) — August 9 (Compass) — An apparently deranged young Turk barricaded himself inside the Diyarbakir Evangelical Church in southeast Turkey on July 19, breaking windows and setting fire to curtains, Bibles and cassette tapes until dense smoke finally ....
August 9 (CDN) — Smoke finally forced him to surrenderAugust 9 — An apparently deranged young Turk barricaded himself inside the Diyarbakir Evangelical Church in southeast Turkey on July 19, breaking windows and setting fire to curtains, Bibles and cassette tapes ....
July 6 (CDN) — July 6 (Compass) — Soner Onder walked out of a high-security Turkish prison on June 22, a free man, reported Open Doors on June 23. To the day, it was 12 years and six months after his arrest as a 17-year-old teenager. Now 31, Soner walked into the ....
June 14 (CDN) — June 14 (Compass) — Zoning status recognizing the Diyarbakir Evangelical Church as an official place of worship has been rejected by a local committee of the Turkish Ministry of Culture. Pastor Ahmet Guvener was informed last month that Turkish law ....
May 13 (CDN) — May 13 (Compass) — In what the Hurriyet newspaper called a “jet acquittal,” a criminal court in southeastern Turkey dropped all charges yesterday against a Protestant pastor accused of opening an “illegal” church. Pastor Ahmet Guvener was fully ....
April 16 (CDN) — April 16 (Compass) — The producer and host of a Turkish TV news show was sentenced to nearly two years in jail last week for airing false provocations against Turkish Protestants. On April 5, a panel of judges ruled that Kerim Akbas’ programs on ....
April 8 (CDN) — April 8 (Compass) — A criminal court in southeast Turkey has for the second time pressed charges against Pastor Ahmet Guvener of the Diyarbakir Evangelical Church, this time accusing him of “opening an illegal church.” Guvener will stand trial for ....
March 26 (CDN) — March 26 (Compass) — On March 25, a criminal court in northwestern Turkey postponed trial hearings against ultra-nationalists accused of severely injuring a Protestant Christian for distributing New Testaments and doing “missionary propaganda.” In a ....
February 13 (CDN) — February 13 (Compass) — Four months after a Turkish convert to Christianity was beaten into a coma for distributing New Testaments, the crippled victim appeared in court yesterday. Yakup Cindilli managed to walk into the Orhangazi Courthouse, ....
February 13 (CDN) — Yakup Cindilli in courtFour months after a Turkish convert to Christianity was beaten into a coma for distributing New Testaments in his hometown in northwestern Turkey, the crippled victim appeared in court yesterday to identify his accused ....
January 15 (CDN) — January 15 (Compass) -- A judge of the Orhangazi Criminal Court in northwestern Turkey released two young nationalists jailed on assault-and-battery charges against a convert to Christianity. The decision was based on a hospital report on the ....
January 12 (CDN) — (Compass) -- After being beaten into a coma three months ago for alleged “missionary propaganda,” Turkish Christian Yakup Cindilli has been slowly improving from a nearly helpless state. Cindilli, 32, was hospitalized the third week of October after ....
December 15 (CDN) — (Compass) — Nearly a month after three suspects were jailed for severely injuring a Turkish Christian distributing so-called “missionary propaganda,” a court in northwest Turkey ordered one of the attackers released. Metin Yildiran, president of the ....
December 15 (CDN) — (Compass) — An American English teacher at an Istanbul university has filed a 40.5 billion Turkish lira ($27,500) slander case against a Turkish newspaper for publishing a series of false charges against him. Hans Chabra, 40, was accused by the ....
December 15 (CDN) — (Compass) — Seven months after the newly constructed Diyarbakir Evangelical Church opened in southeast Turkey, a local council under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism again protested the building’s use as a place of worship. Pastor Ahmet Guvener ....
November 14 (CDN) — (Compass) — A Turkish convert to Christianity was severely beaten for distributing New Testaments in his hometown of Orhangazi in northwestern Turkey. He later slipped into a coma and remains in critical condition. Yakup Cindilli, 32, was ....
November 14 (CDN) — (Compass) — Two months after Deniz Kasan and Turgay Papakci said their wedding vows before 200 relatives and friends at the Istanbul Presbyterian Church, the bride’s application to change her religious identity was refused. Her local population ....
September 12 (CDN) — (Compass) — Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Istanbul stepped up his public campaign with the Turkish government petitioning for the reopening of the prestigious Halki Theological School. August meetings between Bartholomew, Foreign Minister ....
July 14 (CDN) — (Compass) — A final ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is expected by early autumn on the long-delayed appeal against the criminal conviction of Soner Onder, a Turkish citizen of Syrian Catholic heritage. Now 29, Onder was ....
March 14 (CDN) — (Compass) -- Three years after a Turkish Protestant congregation began meeting for worship, the local state prosecutor dropped pending criminal charges against its activities. Last year, the local governor accused the pastor of the Ephesus ....
March 14 (CDN) — (Compass) -- Protestant pastor Ahmet Guvener was acquitted February 3 of making illegal architectural alterations to a building designed to serve as his congregation’s worship and ministry center in southeast Turkey. Last May, Guvener was put on ....
December 14 (CDN) — (Compass) — Relatives and church representatives made up a joyful airport welcoming committee for the Mahmoud Erfani family, three-and-one-half years after the former Muslims fled persecution in Iran. “The Erfanis arrived safely in Toronto amid ....
August 9 (CDN) — (Compass) — The Canadian Embassy in Ankara interviewed for a second time in three months an Iranian Christian family stranded in central Turkey, igniting hopes that Canada might grant them religious asylum. Mahmoud Erfani, his wife and their three ....
August 9 (CDN) — (Compass) — Government officials have approved the revised architectural plan for a Protestant worship center under construction in Diyarbakir, allowing work to resume at the building site on July 30. Nevertheless Pastor Ahmet Guvener still faces ....
August 1 (CDN) — Government officials in Diyarbakir accepted a revised architectural plan this month for a building under construction to become the worship and ministry centre of a small Protestant congregation in the city. A crew of seven workmen resumed work ....
July 18 (CDN) — (Compass) — Police authorities in central Turkey renewed for six months the expired residence permits of the stranded Erfani family, showing them a document from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) headquarters in Ankara ....
July 18 (CDN) — (Compass) — A Turkish Christian facing up to a year in jail for an alleged insult against Islam was acquitted on June 26 by a criminal court in southeastern Turkey. Diyarbakir’s Fourth Criminal Court ordered all charges dropped against Kemal Timur, ....
July 18 (CDN) — (Compass) — Turkish security police ordered a Protestant Christian congregation meeting for 40 years in the southeastern port city of Iskenderun to close its doors in mid June, declaring the church had “no legal basis” and that its activities were ....
May 13 (CDN) — (Compass) - In the wake of the deadly attack against an international church in Pakistan in mid March, Turkey put its security police on high alert around churches and synagogues. Turkish authorities specified that Islamic militants had threatened ....
May 13 (CDN) — (Compass) - The Canadian Embassy in Ankara turned down an Iranian Christian family’s immigration application in late April, closing the last known option for religious asylum for former Muslims Mahmoud and Atefeh Erfani and their three daughters. ....
May 13 (CDN) — (Compass) - Protestant pastor Ahmet Guvener goes on trial in Diyarbakir in late May, accused by the state prosecutor of making illegal changes in the architectural plan of his nearly completed church building. If found guilty of the charges filed ....
May 13 (CDN) — (Compass) - Repeated attempts to intimidate Turkey’s small Protestant church groups surfaced during April in the wake of government inquiries begun six months ago into the legality of their designated places of worship. In the most overt ....
February 22 (CDN) — (Compass) - More than a dozen observers attended the sixth hearing of criminal charges against Turkish Christian Kemal Timur on February 5 in Diyarbakir’s 4th Criminal Court. Timur, 33, is accused of insulting Islam while distributing New Testaments ....
February 15 (CDN) — (Compass) - Under orders from the Turkish Interior Ministry, local authorities in nine provinces of Turkey have launched judicial proceedings questioning the legality of designated places of worship used by some 40 small Protestant church groups ....
October 26 (CDN) — (Compass) - The first modern Turkish translation of the complete Bible was realeased in early October to the Turkish public. The new millennium edition represents the first complete Bible translation since the 17th century in the Turkish language. ....
October 19 (CDN) — (Compass) - Criminal court hearings against a Turkish Christian accused of insulting Islam were delayed October 8 in Diyarbakir, where the defendant faces a possible jail sentence of six months to one year if found guilty. Police officers failed to ....
October 19 (CDN) — (Compass) - 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. ....
July 20 (CDN) — (Compass) - The prime minister of Turkey promised to facilitate the return of Turkish citizens of Assyrian Christian origin to their ancient homelands in the Turkish Southeast in an official circular made public June 12. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit ....
July 20 (CDN) — (Compass) - An Assyrian Christian, Ibrahim Konutgan, 27 and his Turkish companion, 18-year-old Bilal Gulec, were arrested and jailed on June 8 for taking home videos in an ancient churchyard in Turkey’s heavily militarized Southeast. They were both ....
June 15 (CDN) — (Compass) - An Armenian church confiscated by Turkish authorities in late 1999 was returned to church possession by a court decision nearly 17 months later, the weekly Agos newspaper reported on May 11. The government claimed the Kirikhan church had ....
May 18 (CDN) — (Compass) - A Turkish Christian jailed for six days over Easter weekend due to a police investigation into his religious activities was arrested again the following week in a neighboring city while distributing Christian literature. Gaziantep ....
May 18 (CDN) — (Compass) - An Iranian Christian family twice refused United Nations refugee status in Turkey was informed on May 7 that their case «does not merit reopening» for a third review. Together with his wife - who has advanced multiple sclerosis - and his ....
April 21 (CDN) — (Compass) - On March 23, Turkish security police ordered a Protestant Christian church in Gaziantep to stop meeting for worship in their purchased facilities. The police declared the group was violating national laws governing city zoning and public ....
April 21 (CDN) — (Compass) - A state security court in eastern Turkey acquitted Syrian Orthodox priest Yusuf Akbulut on charges of \"provoking religious enmity\" by his comments recorded and published last October in the Turkish media. The parish priest of St. ....
April 21 (CDN) — (Compass) - Two of three prosecution witnesses called to testify against a Turkish Christian accused of slandering Islam gave opposing statements before a Diyarbakir court on March 27. A third accuser failed to appear, despite a court summons. It ....
April 21 (CDN) — (Compass) - Due to ongoing months of tensions in Turkey’s prisons, no one except Soner Onder’s lawyer has been allowed to visit the Christian prisoner since late December. On December 28, an older sister was allowed to see him at the high-security ....
February 16 (CDN) — (Compass) - A Turkish Christian went on trial January 30 for allegedly insulting Islam and the prophet Mohammed. According to the indictment, Kemal Timur, 32, had made the alleged insults on May 1, 2000, while distributing New Testaments in front of ....
January 19 (CDN) — (Compass) - A Syrian Orthodox parish priest in eastern Turkey publicly rejected charges in late December that he had \"provoked hatred and religious enmity\" by telling local reporters that his Christian minority community had been victims of ....
January 19 (CDN) — (Compass) - 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 ....
December 15 (CDN) — (Compass) - Father Yusuf Akbulut, a Syrian Orthodox priest in eastern Turkey, stands trial December 21 on charges that he had publicly confirmed that his Christian community had been among the victims of the alleged Armenian genocide instigated by ....
November 17 (CDN) — (Compass) - Six Turks and two expatriates have been charged by a Turkish court with opening a Christian training institute without legal permission. If convicted, they face a potential jail sentence of 18 months to three years. Police arrested the ....
October 20 (CDN) — (Compass) - An Ankara-based Christian publishing company for children opened a court case in early October against a Turkish newspaper for misrepresenting the truth about the company and its activities. Kucak Publishing Company demanded a formal ....
September 22 (CDN) — (Compass) - Ozgur Yalcin was shocked to get a terse notice of his dismissal from the Turkish armed forces on July 11, 1997. The letter cited vague reasons for his termination, but to his knowledge there was not a single record of disciplinary action ....
September 22 (CDN) — (Compass) - Ankara’s Directorate of Foundations has issued a final appeal to reverse a Supreme Court decision in June approving formation of the first Turkish Protestant church foundation. The June 9 ruling was a landmark decision granting the ....
July 21 (CDN) — (Compass) - In a landmark appeals hearing in June, Ankara’s Supreme Court approved the establishment of the first Christian foundation for a Turkish Protestant church in the nation’s history. The June 9 ruling allows a Turkish evangelical church to ....
June 23 (CDN) — (Compass) - Turkish police raided a Bible study group meeting in a registered place of worship in Istanbul on May 24, arresting six Turks and roughing up one of two foreign citizens. The eight men, including an Australian and an American, were kept ....
April 21 (CDN) — (Compass) - Two Turkish Christians imprisoned near Izmir for a month on concocted charges of insulting Islam were ordered released March 30, after prosecution witnesses admitted that local officials pressured them to sign prepared complaints. Judge ....
March 17 (CDN) — (Compass) - Two Turkish Christians arrested while selling and distributing Christian literature near the southern port city of Izmir were refused bail on March 8, pending a court hearing on March 30. Ercan Sengul, 38, and Necati Aydin, 28, were ....
February 18 (CDN) — (Compass) - The conviction of a Syrian Catholic teenager for alleged participation in a Kurdish terrorist attack nine years ago will be due for review in March or April by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg. Soner Onder, now 27, ....
February 18 (CDN) — (Compass) - Turkish officials seized the property of the St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Orthodox Church in Kirikhan in Turkey’s southern Hatay province on November 22, 1999. Two officials presented church board chairman Abbut Mardikyan with a ....
January 21 (CDN) — (Compass) - Fourteen weeks after Izmir security police sealed the doors of a Turkish Protestant church and arrested 40 of its members, the Izmir Fellowship of Jesus Christ resumed legal meetings for public worship on December 19, despite an ....
