Christians in Turkey

You can read an excelent post by Franze in Civitas Dei, about the consequences that has had for Turkish Christians the murder of Father Santoro:

So why he was described as a “hero” on the front pages of newspapers in Italy? A hero fights, struggles violently, rebels using arms, wants justice at all costs, defends himself and wins by killing the enemy. It seems to me that, according to human logic, Dr Andrea was the figure of the “anti-hero”.

Nor, we are told, was he a saint. He was not a saint like those in the holy pictures: languid, sickly sweet, always compliant and smiling. He had an energetic character, he was decisive, even abrupt, at times resolute, and he did not allow for compromises… one can almost hear an echo of Luke’s description of Jesus, who “set his face resolutely towards Jerusalem”.

A friend of his, a sister, revealed that before returning to Turkey at the end of January, he had called her in Rome and confided: “You know, pray for me because I feel that I am annoying Satan…”

A week later he was murdered in the name of God.

His death has reawakened us from the torpor of our consciences; it is reminding us what it means to die for love. It has reminded us that a Christian can make himself an uncomfortable presence that must be removed, eliminated. And if this is not the case, then one is not a true disciple of Christ.

But after death, comes Life.

What about the difference with the Jihadi "martyrs"?

Related posts: Another priest hurt in Turkey, In the martyrdom of a priest, European Union recognises the murder of Father Santoro, The pardon of Santoro’s mother, More violence in Turkey against Catholic priests.

Tags: Father Santoro, Turkey, religious intolerance

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Violence in school to change policy in Germany?

Violence at a Berlin school has prompted calls in Germany to overhaul the country's education system and provide better integration for immigrant children.

Pictures of hooded pupils pelting journalists with heavy cobblestones and police officers lining the entrance of the Ruetli school in the heavily Turkish and Arab Neukoelln district of Berlin have filled primetime news since Thursday.

Four weeks ago, teachers at the Ruetli school sent a desperate letter to state authorities asking for help and the closure of their current school."

Any help for our school could only improve the situation," the teachers wrote, saying they had been attacked by pupils and that many would only enter a class room with their mobile phones switched on to be able to call for assistance immediately.

"Looking ahead, the school as it is should be dissolved in favor of a new one with a completely different setup," the teachers added.

2.500 Turks deny in Lyon the Armenian Genocide

In this post, I wrote about 2.500 Turks who have protested in France against a monument which is going to conmemorate the Armenian Genocide. Vox Gallaie has some photos of this demonstration:

"There has been never an Armenian Genocide".

"Our ancestors are the victims, not the murderers".

Magnificent: you can go and see this film about the Armenian Genocide.

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France and Turkey: more about the freedom of speech

Some days ago, I wrote about a project of a modification to the French constitution, which called for limitations of the free press. Not surprinsingly, the French Muslims have backed it:

French Muslims backed Saturday, March 18, a draft law criminalizing blasphemy, which has been put forward by an MP for the ruling Union for Popular Movement party (UMP).
“The Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF) is planning a campaign to support the UMP motion,” UOIF head in the heavily Muslim populated Saint Denis district, told IslamOnline.net.
He said representatives of key Muslim organizations in France have recently met with the head of the UMP’s parliamentary bloc to support the initiative and also called on other parties to rally behind the motion, which calls for amending an article in the press law better known as Law July 29, 1881.
Revealing the bill last week, Marc Bouraud, the ruling party’s MP for the Lez Avignon Villeneuve district in southeast France, said that free speech should not be exploited to blaspheme against a certain religion.
He told reporters that France should not tolerate those who incite hatredand criminalize any speech and caricatures blasphemous to any religion.
The MP said he was driven by the Danish cartoons crisis, which “exposed the fragile link between freedom of expression and freedom of belief and thought.”
The motion says that “any speech, yelling, written or printed threat, or drawings attacking a certain religion is considered blasphemy that must be punished.

HT: Plus+Ultra Blog.
At the same time, Turkey is insisting (again) in requesting the EU the need to “protect more Islam“:

Why Turkey wants to enter EU?

Well, this is a summary of what is happening in Turkey. I am just posting an excerpt:

Six months ago, the Center for Security Policy documented the comprehensive nature of Erdogan’s takeover. To recap:

• The Turkish government and economy is being corrupted by billions of dollars in what is known as “green money,” from Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states awash with petro-windfalls. There is reason to believe some this unaccountable cash is finding its way into Turkish businesses, creating revenue streams used to consolidate the Islamists’ power base and finance Islamofascist terrorism.
• The Islamists are employing classic fascistic techniques, using “green” funds and the power of the state to go after strategic targets such as: enterprises of businessmen who support the democratic opposition; banks they own or rely upon for financing; Turkey’s large Alevi minority – whom intolerant Islamofascists try to vilify and persecute as “apostates”; working women (a key ingredient in Turkey’s successful economic and social modernization); the secular bureaucracy; and the press. Particularly worrisome is the fact that consolidation of media ownership has resulted in considerable self-censorship and, of late, propagandizing against the West (including notably a spate of wildly popular, virulently anti-American books and movies).
• A special focus of the creeping Islamofascist coup has been Turkey’s traditionally secular educational system. It is being steadily adulterated by madrassa-style imam-hatip and other “schools” where students are taught only the Koran and its interpretation according to the Islamofascists. The age at which such indoctrination can begin has been lowered to four-years-old.
• The prime minister, himself an imam-hatip graduate, has also mounted assaults on two other fronts that reveal Erdogan’s ominous plans not only for the country’s educators but for another critical Turkish institution, as well: the judiciary.

  First, a local prosecutor, clearly acting on orders from higher up, indicted a prominent secular academic – a university rector named Yucel Askin – on preposterously trumped up charges. Their subsequent dismissal by a court has only intensified Erdogan’s determination to subvert the judiciary. Tens of thousands of Koranic school graduates are being appointed as judges, assuring they will increasingly serve as instruments of Shari’a religious law.

  Worse yet, Erdogan has lately demonstrated that when he does not get his way in court, he is prepared to dispense with the judiciary altogether. This was the upshot of another government-inspired assault on the country’s secular universities, a case brought before the European Court of Human Rights by a female student who insisted on wearing a prohibited hijab (headcovering) to class. When this appeal was rejected, Erdogan angrily declared, “The court has no right to speak on this issue. That right belongs to the ulema (clerics).”

• This statement demonstrates the cynicism of Erdogan’s purported efforts to have Turkey join the European Union. Far from being willing to adhere to European human rights and other standards, he has simply viewed the EU accession process as a means of keeping the army from once again intervening to preserve secular rule – probably the last remaining threat to his consolidation of Islamofascist power.

  Emboldened by the success of this gambit, Erdogan has now gone after one of Turkey’s most highly regarded generals, Land Force Commander Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, who is widely expected to become the head of the Turkish military this summer. A courageous and outspoken anti-Islamist, the regime clearly views his ascendancy as a threat and has had the same local prosecutor who went after the university rector file no-less-absurd charges against Gen. Buyukanit.

You can read the rest here.

Comment: So we can sum it up saying that Erdogan wants Turkey in the EU to stop a reaction against Islamofascism. The EU do not have ANY need of admitting this country. The Turks have voted this man. Yes, there can be some of them who are resisting the regime, BUT who will suceed if they enter the European Union? Viewing what Europe is doing (even asking for a limitation of the free press) I do not think that the moderates will. I really believe the ones who sadly are going to reign all over are going to be the Islamofascists. As the Professor of Islamic Studies Mehdi Mozaffari says, “Historical experience has shown that those whom people fear will win, eventually“. And we can see European leaders are frightened, except Rasmussen perhaps. And by the way the facts that the second most sold book in Turkey is the Mein Kampf (the first is an Anti-Ameican one) and the most viewed film is “Valley of the Wolves” in which the evil ones are an American and a Jewish are just frightful.

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More violence in Turkey against Catholic Priests

Gateway Pundit has the news.

Fr Hanri Leylek, one of the monks at the parish, wrote to AsiaNews: “Some newspapers said ‘the boy entered the Catholic Church, accusing the church of prostituting boys with girls coming to the church’, as if this was the main news”, thus leaving the attack aside.

What really happened was that “on 11 March, at around 7pm, while we were holding a rehearsal for the play of the Passion of Christ in the convent of the parish, […] one of the boys called me, telling me there was a stranger creating problems, who wanted to talk to a priest. I went out of the room and started to talk to him; seeing that he was saying disjointed things and threats, I asked him to go outside. He refused and only threatened all the more, swearing. […] I decided to call the police. […] All of a sudden, I saw the young people scatter and this youth came to the telephone booth with a sort of scimitar (a knife around 80 or 90cam long, used to cut Turkish doner kebabs) – it had been hidden behind his back – which he started to threaten me with. […] In the meantime, Fr Robert too had come into the corridor. This time, the boy turned on Fr Robert and threatened him, clutching the knife. I managed to sneak out and to go to the police station near the church. […] The boy continued to shout and threaten. Within five minutes I was back in the convent with three or four policemen. They crossed the boy on the stairs of the convent. He threatened them too and they tried to talk to him to calm him down. In the meantime, journalists and a dozen police reached the scene. There was some 15 minutes talk and finally the boy surrendered to the police.”

The manipulation is plain and simple: the media only says the attacker was accusing the church of prostituting boys with girls (when they were only holding a rehearsal of the Passion of the Christ) and they do not mention the attack and the threatens he made to all the people he met in the Church. Just the same they did with Father Santoro. (link in italian)

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Turkish Mediation, bounties and dhimmitude

Agora :: Turkish mediation in prophet crisis given the brush-off :: March :: 2006

Turkish Mediation in Prophet Crisis given the Brush-off
The Turkish Foreign minister suggests to the EU that they tighten their laws against offending religious sensibilites. Both the Danish and the Dutch Foreign Minister rejects the proposal. The Turkish Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gül, tried helping Denmark moving beyond the Muhammed-crisis.
On a meeting of Foreign Ministers in Salzburg, he had been asked to open the debate about how to create better dialogue between the EU and the Moslem World. “It’s time for Europe to facus on the bigger problems today and not let itself get consumed by problems less important in the bigger picture. Those bigger problems are, to name a few, poverty, extremism, anti-semitism and islamophobia,” Gül scolded.

Oh, yeah, Europe is the most extremist of all parts of the world. And yes, anti-semitism is somewhat big these days in Europe, but I do think that it’s more intense in Muslim countries (example: Syria) and among Muslims, whatever some Anti-Israeli Jews say. Lastly, but not least, islamophobia is not the real problem in Europe:

He warned tat the cartoon affair was about Europe’s prestige and that the world community mustn’t think that religion is not part of the European value set, when the opposite is the case. “It’ s Europe’s greatest value and it should not be destroyed,” Gül said.

Yeah, religion is a very important value in Europe. But we have to ask: what religion? I am sure that Islam is not a real value of Europe, it’s just an imported religion, whatever some exhibition in London tells all of us (see also Gates of Vienna). And, as the cartoon case has showed, does not stand for the real values of Europe. So much that even in Germany the Koran is being accused of incompatibility with German values and In Holland there are going to be special tests for inmigrants. It’s curious that both things have not been necessary before for the previous foreigners, whatever their religion was. Looks like they did not want to burn the flags of the country they were living in.

And of course, if people in Europe does not start taking their own faith seriously, the predictions are not very good: a senior cathedral cleric in Britain , is suggesting it will become a Muslim nation. And that is also what the most important of all the refugees in Norway, Mullah Krekar, says: “The West can never be victorious” (Also in NoisyRoom.Net, LGF ).

But we continue with Gül:

His speech circulated among Turkish and Danish journalists. According to a Turkish journalist, especially one sentence was directed at Denmark: “When we fail to stop overt fanatic manifestetations, we’re probably stoking the fires of those on the other side of the fance,” it said.
Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller (Conservatives) was pleased that Gül distanced himself from radicalism. But he didn’t think there were many other newsworthy items in the speech. The only other thing of interest was an appeal to the EU-countries to consider tightening their laws against defamation of religious sensibilities, according to Per Stig Møller. “I would ask you to examine your legislation to ensure that all religions are treated equally, Islam included,” Gül said.
The Dutch and Danish Foreign Ministers denied any such need. “We have Freedom of Speech. That means that Mr. Gül can say whatever he likes and I can say what I feel like. And I think [Gül’s idea] is superflous,” The Dutch Foreign Minister, Bernard Bot, said to Dutch journalists. Per Stig Møller also emphasised that the idea was redundant: “We have that already. All EU members have legislation like that”. […]

It’s curious that a Muslim scholar says Islam will only be reformed when the Muslims get their ass kicked. What is more surprising is that he was someone opposed to the cartoons.

But looks like the ones who are been pursued are the cartoonists: another bounty has been offered (see also The Volokh Conspiracy), but also someone is protesting the violence with very similar reasons as we have pointed in the past. (HT: Tim Blair)

The deaths from the cartoon riots have demonstrated to the Western world not our love for our Prophet (peace be upon him), but the flippancy with which we regard human life. What benefit has the loss of another fifty Muslim lives brought? What good has the burning and vandalism of embassies done? For what fault were the Nigerian Christians attacked and their churches destroyed? We speak of the non-Muslim world’s need to respect Islamic sentiments and yet we cannot reciprocate the same toward other religions. Sadly, it seems the scope of our tolerance extends only to those who tolerate us. And in doing so we appear just as bad as those whom we criticize.

Where is our vociferous condemnation of the killings of innocents, be they in Bali, Beslan or in Baghdad? Have we ever demonstrated our outrage at the mass killings perpetrated by Muslim terrorists with the same ounce of protest that we reserve for the death of our own? Where was our outrage when the bodies of American civilians were being dragged across the streets of Baghdad, or the ones of Israeli soldiers being desecrated in Gaza? Can we honestly compare our muted head-shaking over the beheadings of Westerners with our ongoing violent protests against the cartoons? Yes, we do express “concern” or “disapproval”, but this by no means matches the zeal with which we decry such injustices inflicted upon our own.

Meanwhile the demonstrations continue: this photo from Pakistan (HT: Drinking from Home):

Drinking from Home reports that the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Comission has accepted the two complaints Syed Soharwardy filed against the publishers of the Jewish Free Press and the Western Standard for re-publishing the cartoons of Mohammed. The editor of the Western Standard tells his side of the story in the Calgary Sun, where he points out that the Alberta Human Rights Commision is all political correctness and ideological engineering and that the imam Soharwardy “not only does he think publishing the cartoons should be illegal but he thinks arguinig for the right to publish them should be illegal“. Just go over and read it.Via Pia Gratia, we get to know about the reason why Muslims were so “angry” about the cartoons. Kuwaiti scholar Tareq Suwaidan at the dialogue meeting in Copenhagen, March 10, quoted in Islam Online: “We are not angry because some of your have drawn our beloved Prophet. We are aggravated because of the way your government has mishandled this situation,” he said.,” he said. But as it is proved here there were no “mishandling” of the situation, just the firm defense of the values of Western civilization.

Well, some people in Europe has a very similar view on the subject. And others are respectful with Muslims but not with other religions: a student newspaper refused to publish the Mohammed cartoons but published a cartoon titled Capitalistic Piglet “that depicted Jesus performing oral sex on a pig. In the second panel the pig says that it’s “kosher” so long as the Christian savior doesn’t swallow” (via Dread Pundit Bluto).

Lastly, another very good information from Drinking from Home: Looks like a 14-member delegation of Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) met the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour to state the Muslim world’s concerns over the publication of teh cartoons and “[…] [they] urged the UN high commissioner to help Muslim countries redress legal deficits regarding respect for religions and also mobilise the human rights machinery to prevent any recurrence“.

At the same time in Indonesia, The Islamic Defender Front, an Indonesian Islamic fundamentalist movement, has shut down a Catholic “home” church in Sumedang in Garut, around 350km from the capital Jakarta, and ordered local worshippers “not to search for another place where to profess their faith”… After their chapel was shut down, a group of Catholics went to the police to denounce the case but “for the sake of keeping peace in the area”, they were “advised” not to make too much fuss.