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THREE CHRISTIANS MURDERED IN TURKISH CITY
By Vincent Boland in Ankara
FT
April 18 2007 18:44
Three people, including a German citizen, were killed in a savage
attack on a Turkish publishing company with ties to the country's
Christian community, in the latest in a series of bloody assaults on
its tiny religious minorities.
Separately, in a development that could inflame Turkey's simmering
ethnic tensions still further, four police officers were acquitted of
any wrongdoing in the shooting deaths of a 12-year-old Kurdish boy
and his father in 2004. The incident caused anguish in the country
and attracted the attention of international human rights activists.
Both developments highlight the precarious nature of religious and
other minority freedoms in Turkey, which is 99 per cent Muslim and
prone to chauvinistic nationalism. They follow the murder in January
of Hrant Dink, a prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist, and coincide
with continuing unrest and separatist feeling in the Kurdish provinces
in the east and southeast.
The attack on the Zirve publishing house, which reportedly was involved
in distributing bibles, occurred in Malatya, a city of about 1m in
eastern Turkey. The three victims were found with their hands and feet
bound and with their throats cut in an assault that bore hallmarks
of the attacks carried out by Islamist extremists. The German embassy
in Ankara said one of the victims was a German citizen.
Four people were being questioned about the incident late on Wednesday,
and Turkish television reported that a link was being investigated
to an organisation called Turkish Hezbollah, which seeks to establish
an Islamist state in Kurdish Turkey.
Any motive for the attack, the worst on a Christian target for many
years, was not clear. But Malatya has an unusual history that would
give the incident some context. It used to be home to a large community
of Armenian Christians. Most of them fled or were massacred as the
Ottoman empire collapsed during the first world war.
Since then its population has become a mix of Turks and ethnic Kurds.
Both communities identify their separate and often warring nationalisms
with Islam. Malatya is the hometown of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish
man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, and of Mr Dink.
The four police officers were acquitted of all charges relating to
the murders of Ahmet Kaymaz and his son Ugur in Kiziltepe, a Kurdish
village close to Turkey's border with Syria. The case was seen as a
test of Turkey's willingness to hold its security forces to account in
the decades-old war between the Turkish state and Kurdish separatism.
A judge at the trial found on Wednesday that the officers acted
in self-defence. Murat Yapmaz, an uncle of the dead boy, said in a
telephone interview that the family felt it had not got justice.
"We will never accept this decision. It is very bad for Turkey,"
he said.
By Vincent Boland in Ankara
FT
April 18 2007 18:44
Three people, including a German citizen, were killed in a savage
attack on a Turkish publishing company with ties to the country's
Christian community, in the latest in a series of bloody assaults on
its tiny religious minorities.
Separately, in a development that could inflame Turkey's simmering
ethnic tensions still further, four police officers were acquitted of
any wrongdoing in the shooting deaths of a 12-year-old Kurdish boy
and his father in 2004. The incident caused anguish in the country
and attracted the attention of international human rights activists.
Both developments highlight the precarious nature of religious and
other minority freedoms in Turkey, which is 99 per cent Muslim and
prone to chauvinistic nationalism. They follow the murder in January
of Hrant Dink, a prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist, and coincide
with continuing unrest and separatist feeling in the Kurdish provinces
in the east and southeast.
The attack on the Zirve publishing house, which reportedly was involved
in distributing bibles, occurred in Malatya, a city of about 1m in
eastern Turkey. The three victims were found with their hands and feet
bound and with their throats cut in an assault that bore hallmarks
of the attacks carried out by Islamist extremists. The German embassy
in Ankara said one of the victims was a German citizen.
Four people were being questioned about the incident late on Wednesday,
and Turkish television reported that a link was being investigated
to an organisation called Turkish Hezbollah, which seeks to establish
an Islamist state in Kurdish Turkey.
Any motive for the attack, the worst on a Christian target for many
years, was not clear. But Malatya has an unusual history that would
give the incident some context. It used to be home to a large community
of Armenian Christians. Most of them fled or were massacred as the
Ottoman empire collapsed during the first world war.
Since then its population has become a mix of Turks and ethnic Kurds.
Both communities identify their separate and often warring nationalisms
with Islam. Malatya is the hometown of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish
man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, and of Mr Dink.
The four police officers were acquitted of all charges relating to
the murders of Ahmet Kaymaz and his son Ugur in Kiziltepe, a Kurdish
village close to Turkey's border with Syria. The case was seen as a
test of Turkey's willingness to hold its security forces to account in
the decades-old war between the Turkish state and Kurdish separatism.
A judge at the trial found on Wednesday that the officers acted
in self-defence. Murat Yapmaz, an uncle of the dead boy, said in a
telephone interview that the family felt it had not got justice.
"We will never accept this decision. It is very bad for Turkey,"
he said.