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| Europe |
| Turkey Releases Christian Kurd From 12-Year Imprisonment |
| 2004-07-07 |
| From Compass Direct Soner Onder walked out of a high-security Turkish prison on June 22, a free man, reported Open Doors on June 23. To the day, it was 12 years and six months after his arrest as a 17-year-old teenager. Now 31, Soner walked into the arms of his family outside a Turkish military compound in Tekirdag. Sonerâs 74-year-old mother â his father is deceased â joined uncles, cousins and siblings who had flown in from Germany, Sweden, Holland and other cities of Turkey for the long-awaited reunion. Soner was returning from church services on Christmas day, 1991, when police arrested him off a public bus following a deadly Kurdish terrorist attack on a local department store. The only reason for his arrest was Sonerâs identity card, which listed his birthplace as Diyarbakir, center of the Kurdish separatist uprising. Soner estimated that he received at least 11,000 cards and letters from Christians around the world during his imprisonment. âMany of them I couldnât read,â he admitted, âbut they were so colorful and encouraging to me.â |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |