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REPORT: 3 KILLED IN ATTACK ON PUBLISHING HOUSE THAT PRINTS BIBLES IN TURKEY
AP Worldstream
Published: Apr 18, 2007
Attackers killed three people Wednesday at a publishing house that
had been the subject of protests for distributing Bibles in Turkey,
the government-run Anatolia news agency reported.
Police were giving no immediate information about the attack. Dogan
news agency said, however, that the three people killed had their
throats slit. It said a fourth person jumped from a window to escape
the attack, and was hospitalized with injuries.
Anatolia also said one person was hospitalized with a throat injury
but later died.
The Zirve publishing house in the city of Malatya has been the site
of previous protests by nationalists accusing it of proselytizing
in this mostly Muslim but secular country, Dogan reported. Turks are
considered moderately religious, however, and view proselytizers with
suspicion. Many are detained and extradited.
Video footage broadcast on the private NTV news channel showed police
tackling one man outside the publishing house, and rescue workers
loading another man in a neck brace onto a stretcher.
The attack would be the latest on members of Turkey's tiny Christian
community, comprising less than 1 percent of the population.
In February 2006, a Turkish teenager shot dead a Catholic priest, Rev.
Andrea Santoro, as he knelt in prayer in his church in the Black Sea
port of Trabzon. Two other Catholic priests were attacked later that
year. A prominent Armenian Christian editor, Hrant Dink, was killed
earlier this year.
Malatya, known as a hotbed of nationalists, is also known as the
hometown of Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981.
Last year, tens of thousands protested the visit by Pope Benedict
XVI to Turkey.
Constantinople _ modern-day Istanbul _ was the Christian Byzantine
capital for more than 1,000 years until it fell to Muslim forces in
1453 and became the seat of the Muslim Ottoman Empire.
Of Turkey's 70 million people today, only about 65,000 are Armenian
Orthodox Christians, 20,000 are Roman Catholic and 3,500 are
Protestant _ mostly converts from Islam. Another 2,000 are Greek
Orthodox Christians.
AP Worldstream
Published: Apr 18, 2007
Attackers killed three people Wednesday at a publishing house that
had been the subject of protests for distributing Bibles in Turkey,
the government-run Anatolia news agency reported.
Police were giving no immediate information about the attack. Dogan
news agency said, however, that the three people killed had their
throats slit. It said a fourth person jumped from a window to escape
the attack, and was hospitalized with injuries.
Anatolia also said one person was hospitalized with a throat injury
but later died.
The Zirve publishing house in the city of Malatya has been the site
of previous protests by nationalists accusing it of proselytizing
in this mostly Muslim but secular country, Dogan reported. Turks are
considered moderately religious, however, and view proselytizers with
suspicion. Many are detained and extradited.
Video footage broadcast on the private NTV news channel showed police
tackling one man outside the publishing house, and rescue workers
loading another man in a neck brace onto a stretcher.
The attack would be the latest on members of Turkey's tiny Christian
community, comprising less than 1 percent of the population.
In February 2006, a Turkish teenager shot dead a Catholic priest, Rev.
Andrea Santoro, as he knelt in prayer in his church in the Black Sea
port of Trabzon. Two other Catholic priests were attacked later that
year. A prominent Armenian Christian editor, Hrant Dink, was killed
earlier this year.
Malatya, known as a hotbed of nationalists, is also known as the
hometown of Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981.
Last year, tens of thousands protested the visit by Pope Benedict
XVI to Turkey.
Constantinople _ modern-day Istanbul _ was the Christian Byzantine
capital for more than 1,000 years until it fell to Muslim forces in
1453 and became the seat of the Muslim Ottoman Empire.
Of Turkey's 70 million people today, only about 65,000 are Armenian
Orthodox Christians, 20,000 are Roman Catholic and 3,500 are
Protestant _ mostly converts from Islam. Another 2,000 are Greek
Orthodox Christians.