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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Turkey: Erdogan taking advantage of pandemic to scapegoat Christians and deny them basic rights

Jun 28, 2020 8:00 am By Christine Douglass-Williams

While socialists and Antifa attack the history of the U.S. and the U.K. and ignore their development of societies that recognize and protect equal justice for all, Christians are being massacred and persecuted in majority-Muslim countries, with little international attention given to their plight. “Turkish authorities have started to simply assign land owned by a community or a private person to other owners, in effect expropriating it from the Christians. During the armed confrontation with the Kurds, churches in this part of the country have also been destroyed.”

Since 2016 and before that, Jihad Watch has been reporting about how rapidly re-Islamizing Turkey was escalating the persecution of Christians, some of whom even live in fear of their own neighbors killing them. Attacks on Christian cemeteries in Turkey have also increased. In March, Muslims screaming “Allahu akbar” disrupted a Christian funeral.

Scholar Alexander Görlach also noted that the Turkish government was taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic and recession to pressure and scapegoat Christians. And while the West welcomes Muslim migrants, “In the wake of the recent Turkish military offensive in northern Syria, some 200,000 people, many of them Christians, have been forced to flee their homes. They are currently unable to return due to the conflict.”

“Opinion: Christians a welcome scapegoat in Turkey,” by Alexander Görlach, DW, June 23, 2020:

The persecution of Christians in Turkey continues. While the world is busy fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, dealing with mass unemployment and a global recession, the Turkish government is taking advantage of the situation to further pressure minorities. The marginalization of Turkey’s Christians isn’t new for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan: He’s been busy reorganizing his secular republic into a mixture of Ottomanism and Islam for some time now.

Recently, the Syriac-Aramaic Christians in the country’s southeast, in particular, had to fear for their rights and property. This religious community is one of the world’s oldest churches. Aramaic, the language the community uses in worship, is thought to have been spoken by Jesus Christ himself.

Systematic discrimination

Turkish authorities have started to simply assign land owned by a community or a private person to other owners, in effect expropriating it from the Christians. During the armed confrontation with the Kurds, churches in this part of the country have also been destroyed.

In the wake of the recent Turkish military offensive in northern Syria, some 200,000 people, many of them Christians, have been forced to flee their homes. They are currently unable to return due to the conflict.

Erdogan has promised to let the churches be rebuilt. But the long-running and systematic discrimination against Turkey’s Christian minority suggests he isn’t really serious about reviving Christian religious life.

On trial for following his faith

Take the case of Sefer Bilecen. In January, the Syriac Orthodox priest from Mardin in southeastern Turkey was accused of being a member of a terrorist group. He is said to have given water and bread to Kurdish fighters who knocked at the gate of his monastery.

In his defense, the priest has argued that he would provide help to anyone who asked for it — it’s his Christian duty. He has since been released from prison after various aid organizations intervened, but is still on trial….

Step by step, using a nationalist and Islamic rhetoric, Turkey’s Christians are becoming a welcome scapegoat for Ankara….

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Filed Under: Featured, Muslim persecution of Christians, Turkey Tagged With: Alexander Görlach, coronavirus, Recep Tayyip Erdogan


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Comments

  1. RichardL says

    Jun 28, 2020 at 9:44 am

    the DW is a government propaganda organ and it is astonishing that they report on this. Maybe that is because it is not watched in Germany and they want to appear less pro-islam than they are. In Austria, and this is really remarkable, the Green-ÖVP coalition government will go forward with establishing a centre for keeping tabs on “political islam”. They will use the centre’s output to systematically fight political islam. This is truly astonishing because the goal seems to be to separate the private exercise of islam from the public (in the polis) expression of islam. That would destroy islam. The Muslim Brotherhood is specifically mentioned as the enemy. If that were to happen in Germany, they would have to close 2/3 of the mosques because they are run by the Turkish ministry of religion.

    • mortimer says

      Jun 28, 2020 at 11:01 am

      Thanks for the helpful information. Germany always seemed far ahead of other countries in recognizing that SALAFISM is the source of most of the political problem … in other words, the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as Saudi Arabia (which provides Salafist mosques and clergy) and Qatar which funds the MB. Ordinary Germans, however, appear more concerned about their ‘benefits’ (healthcare and pensions), than about the stability and cultural continuity of Germany. The social engineering experiment of Merkel (i.e. suddenly bringing in more than a million army-age unemployables) placed a severe burden on the German states and cities that had to care for those unemployable opportunists. Islam was never a part of German, and has nothing to do with any part of German history save the Crusades and Germany’s horrid WWI alliance with genocidal Turkey. Germany should increase funding to its orientalist scholars to show that the Koran is a document of human origin that was composed long after the death of Mohammed.

  2. mortimer says

    Jun 28, 2020 at 11:36 am

    Turkey’s government is fascist-Islamist. Erdogan is a modern, Islamist version of Mussolini without his many uniforms (Mussolini was a real soldier and real officer). As long as Erdogan can use the state to create unopposed propaganda, the Turkish youth can be spoon-fed a daily pack of lies and gradually brainwashed to become a neo-Ottoman army. The internet, however, will be the undoing of Erdogan as young people look for the truth elsewhere. Expatriate Turks will keep them in touch with reality as long as the internet is free.

    At the moment, however, Facebook and twitter are taking the wrong side of history by trying to crush free speech. Many are switching to bitchute and Parler to speak openly and freely. The ‘cancel culture’ is now exposed, so it can’t last many more years, because it can no longer hide.

    • SAFI says

      Jun 29, 2020 at 3:47 am

      I disagree with your optimism for a couple reasons. First, the internet in Turkey definitely isn’t free. It can get censored and does get censored quite often. Even when websites are not banned directly people have often been arrested and imprisoned for posting something on social media that the regime did not like.
      Also expatriate Turks vote overwhelmingly for Erdogan’s AKP. Turkey exercises massive control over the diaspora through various methods. Turkey is also notorious for abusing the Interpol system and for pressuring european governments(which often cpmply) to extradite turkish dissidents on false charges.

    • SAFI says

      Jun 29, 2020 at 3:48 am

      I disagree with your optimism for a couple reasons. First, the internet in Turkey definitely isn’t free. It can get censored and does get censored quite often. Even when websites are not banned directly people have often been arrested and imprisoned for posting something on social media that the regime did not like.
      Also expatriate Turks vote overwhelmingly for Erdogan’s AKP. Turkey exercises massive control over the diaspora through various methods. Turkey is also notorious for abusing the Interpol system and for pressuring european governments(which often cpmply) to extradite turkish dissidents on false charges

    • SAFI says

      Jun 29, 2020 at 8:55 am

      The internet in Turkey is definitely not free. It can and does get censored quite often. Even when websites are not banned directly, people often get arrested and imprisoned for posts on social media that the regime disapproves. Also epatriate Turks tend to vote overwhelimingly for AKP. Turkey pays enormous attention to contolling the diaspora and is also notorious for abusing the interpol system and pressurig european countries(which often comply) to extradite turkish dissidents to Turkey on false charges.

      PS this is my third attempt to post this. I don’t know what’s wrong with jihadwatch today. I haven’t experienced any problems before

  3. janwog says

    Jun 28, 2020 at 11:47 am

    Discrimination against Christians has never ended since the death of Attah Turk. Suppression of Orthodox seminary since decades and obligation of new priests being Turkish.

    • gravenimage says

      Jun 28, 2020 at 11:33 pm

      Ataturk himself was fine with the slaughter of Christians during the Armenian Genocide.

  4. Goofy says

    Jun 28, 2020 at 12:42 pm

    Turkey is a holiday destination to avoid along with the Maldives.

  5. Keith O says

    Jun 28, 2020 at 5:54 pm

    This is, unfortunately, repeating a pattern we have seen around the world for thousands of years.
    Take the belongings of the people you want to get rid of, give them to your mates/own people and they think your a “strong leader”.
    Erdogan is simple a despot with an inflated sense of entitlement, (standard mudslime mentality).
    He will continue to do this and Christians will continue to suffer as long as he and his nut job religion are ruling Turkey.

    • GreekEmpress says

      Jun 28, 2020 at 8:17 pm

      +1
      This persecution won’t end until they cleanse the country of every Christian.
      Then their genocide will finally be complete.

      • gravenimage says

        Jun 28, 2020 at 11:34 pm

        Grimly true, GreekEmpress.

  6. gravenimage says

    Jun 28, 2020 at 11:29 pm

    Turkey: Erdogan taking advantage of pandemic to scapegoat Christians and deny them basic rights
    ……………..

    Grimly, this is happening in Pakistan and Egypt and many other parts of Dar-al-Islam.

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