What flagrant hypocrisy. From AP, with thanks to Anthony:
BELEK, Turkey -- In a bid to showcase Turkey as a country that respects religions, the prime minister inaugurated a mosque, a synagogue and a church, just days before the European Union is to decide on whether to start membership talks with the largely Muslim nation.The side-by-side houses of worship are in a park in the Mediterranean resort of Belek, near Antalya, and will mainly serve foreigners vacationing in the region. The church is partitioned into Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox sections.
"Beyond its symbolic importance, this project gives the message of peace and brotherhood to whole world," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday at the inauguration ceremony.
European leaders will decide in a Dec. 16-17 summit whether to begin EU accession talks with Turkey.
The 25-member bloc has expressed concern about Turkey's treatment of religious and ethnic minorities and has said that improved rights for minorities are a condition for Turkish membership.
Dutch Minister for European Affairs Atzo Nicolai attended the ceremony and urged Turkey to decrease "state intervention in worship."
"As friends, we owe it ourselves to be critical ... of each other," Nicolai said.
The inauguration of the mosque, church and synagogue was made possible after Turkey changed laws that restricted the opening of houses of worship other than mosques to boost its chances of EU membership....
"Turkey's Catholic citizens cannot claim a title of ownership on the churches they use, let alone request permission for new ones when there is need," said the Rev. Alphonse T. Sammut, a Vatican representative in Turkey.
Turkey also is under pressure to reopen an Orthodox theology school on an island outside Istanbul that trained generations of church leaders, including Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, until it was closed by Turkish authorities in 1971.
Turkey is locked in a dispute over the status of Bartholomew, the Istanbul-based spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians.
The nation has long refused to accept any international role for the patriarch and argues that Bartholomew is merely the spiritual leader of Istanbul's dwindling Orthodox community of less than 3,000.
Erdogan warned that the EU risks being branded a "Christian club" if it excludes Turkey.
Horror of horrors! A Christian club! I trust Erdogan will duly protest the Arab League's status as a Muslim Club.
>>"Beyond its symbolic importance, this project gives the message of peace and brotherhood to whole world," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday at the inauguration ceremony.>>
You should call it "Place of Christian worship a la Potemkin", Mr.Recep Taqiya Erdogan!
Urgent newsflash just in from EURABIA NEWS: The euro-slaves news channel of choice!!!
A new church in Turkey has just been opened big enough for 5 garden gnomes to fit in. Sitting a staggering several inches high, it is considered the biggest church to be built in Turkey since 1454. How times have changed in Turkey!!! The international christian garden gnome community is extremely grateful and has now demanded that Turkey be admitted into the EU for its incredible tolerance for christian garden gnomes, or else they will sit motionless in solidarity with their muslim owners.
Careful obl r us, the erudite academians monitoring this site might consider your factual comments racist and biased before they head for the bank to cash in their easy earned blood money payments bearing a certain Kingdoms address.
Andrew,
right You are!
obl r us:
That's a Hall of Fame post! I think I sprained a giblet laughing at that one.
RS's concluding remarks about Erdogan's "warning" ("I'll call all you infidels Racists!") really illustrates the fork in Erdogan's tongue - Turkey was among the first countries clamoring to join the 57 member OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) "Muslim Club" when it was formed in 1969.
BTW, since Minhaj Arastu of CAIR says the United States is a "Judeo-Christian-Muslim" country now(http://www.anti-cair-net.org/press_040_04), can the Great Satan go up in the OIC tree-fort now, or do we have to keep standing out here with the girls?
For anyone who's interested, Amnesty International's Interfaith Network may be worth adding to your list of sites to monitor, for instance, this is where you can find reports on human rights cases involving religious groups such as the Ahmadiyya (remember cases such as this covered here? http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/003724.php)
http://www.amnestyusa.org/interfaith/index.do
If you have a human rights violation to report regarding a particular religious group or an individual member you can e-mail AI at:
networks@aiusa.org
Put "Attention Interfaith Network" in the subject area.
Andrew would that be the United Kingdom by any chance?!
Most Brits don't want Turkey to be in the EU. We play them at football and they stab our England fans to death. Nice bunch.
And what would happen if Turkey's 'moderate' muslim majority were to actually take heed of their holy scriptures?
Don't write off the Europeans, the EU press has unashamedly snubbed Turkey:
http://www.worldpress.org/Europe/867.cfm
Barroso just welcomed Turkey into the EU.
More Taqiyya and Kitman from that Pious Muslim Erdogan.