More signs of the encroachment of Sharia in secular Turkey.
“Turkey: Converts Subjected To Official Harassment,” from Compass Direct:
ISTANBUL, 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 the converts from Islam fined for “illegal collection of funds.”
Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal, on trial for insulting Turkishness under the nation’s notorious Article 301, were summoned to Istanbul’s Beyoglu police headquarters on Sunday morning (July 1) just before church services began at the Taksim Protestant Church, where Tastan is a member.
“Three plainclothes policemen were waiting for me at the church,” Tastan said, “saying I was wanted at the police station.”
With their lawyer out of town, he telephoned Topal, and the two agreed to go along to the police station.
“I thought probably the police were acting on last week’s Interior Ministry decree,” Tastan told Compass, referring to a June 28 directive sent to all the nation’s governors ordering extra security for Turkey”s religious minorities in the wake of rising violence against non-Muslims. “But it turned out to be something entirely different.”
The two Christians were both presented with a separate “penalty” sheet from the security police division linked to the Beyoglu district, ordering each one to pay 600 Turkish lira (US$461) for breaking a civil law.
According to the one-page decisions, the two men were guilty of violating section 29 of civil administrative code 2860, which forbids the collection of money without official permission from local district authorities.
Read it all.