Published: 10:30 GMT Standard Time - Tuesday 21 January 2014
Fears anti-Christian campaign in Turkey could incite violence
Country/Region: Middle East and North Africa, Turkey
Christian leaders in Turkey have raised fears that an Islamic hate campaign over the Christmas and New Year period could lead to violent attacks.
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| The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul may be converted into a mosque ArildV / CC BY-SA 3.0 |
The scale of protests against the Christian festival was described as “unprecedented” by Al-Monitor.
The campaign was led by the Anatolian Youth Association (AYA), the youth branch of the pro-Islamic Felicity Party.
Posters were displayed in various Istanbul neighbourhoods that pictured a Muslim man punching Santa Claus with the slogan “No to New Year’s and Christmas celebrations”.
The group also distributed flyers stating:
We are crying out that the New Year’s and Christmas celebrations held in our country are wrong and constitute a blow dealt to our Muslim identity.
And:
The adoption and practice of Christmas by Muslims should be regarded as religious and cultural degeneration. One should bear in mind that such behavior is accelerating the process of alienation and estrangement from our own religious beliefs and values, and will breed a favorable ground for Christian missionary activities targeting our country and people.
The AYA followed this up with a demonstration on 26 December at Beyazit Square in Istanbul, where they stabbed an inflatable Santa while chanting against Christmas and New Year celebrations.
Bishop Sahag Masalyan expressed concerns that the Santa sabotage was “like a rehearsal” for attacks on real people. He said:
A handful of Christians are left in this country, and such incidents naturally cause fear… The savage murders of missionaries took place in the wake of similar hate campaigns.
Al-Monitor said that Turkey was “plagued” by an anti-Christian campaign in the 2000s that resulted in physical attacks on Christians, citing the murder of church leader Andrea Santoro in Trabzon in 2006, the assassination of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007, and the killing of three Christians in a publishing house in Malatya the same year.
Islamisation programme
As well as facing opposition from Islamist activists on the streets, Turkey’s tiny Christian minority is under threat of increased marginalisation as a result of the government’s Islamisation programme.
The conversion of former Byzantine-era churches from museums into mosques highlights the country’s movement away from a secular towards an Islamic state. The controversial changes, which seem likely to continue, have alarmed Christians; the famous Hagia Sophia in Istanbul may be next.
In November, Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc, said at a museum dedication event:
We currently stand next to the Hagia Sophia Mosque. We are looking at a sad Hagia Sophia but hopefully we will see it smiling again soon.
The Hagia Sophia was originally built as a church, and the current building has been standing for more than 1,400 years. It was turned into a mosque by Ottoman conquerors in 1453 and became a museum in 1935 following a decree by Kemal Mustafa Ataturk, the founder of Turkey’s secular republic.
Some commentators see the museum conversions as a bid by the ruling Justice and Development Party to bolster its religiously conservative base ahead of provincial elections in March.
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