It Is Our Islamic Duty to See That You Are Killed
From Compass Direct
A Protestant pastor in the Turkish industrial city of Izmit woke up yesterday morning to find a huge red swastika painted on his apartment door, with a handwritten hate letter shoved underneath. In high-school-level Turkish, the writer threatened the safety of Wolfgang Hade and his family unless they left the country within a month. A German citizen, Hade is married to a Turkish national of Christian background. The hate letter questioned whether Hade was really serving Christianity or being âusedâ to attack Turkish values. ....
Together with his wife and small daughter, Hade has lived for the past three and one-half years in Izmit, near the epicenter of Turkeyâs disastrous 1999 earthquake in western Turkey. Their small congregation of 15 to 20 Turkish Protestants worship in a two-story building purchased through the foundation of their parent church in Istanbul. The Izmit Protestant Church was targeted in a violent attack the night after Christmas last year, when someone started a fire next to the outside wall of the building. ....
The string of Izmit attacks are not isolated cases. Over the past six months, vigilante groups in at least four other Turkish cities have also threatened Protestant church workers and attacked their places of worship. Simultaneously, the Turkish media has fanned intense criticism of Christian missionary activity. Even government ministers have spoken out, claiming that foreign missionaries had political motives aimed at âdamaging the social peace and unity of Turkey.â ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2005-07-15 |