From Compass Direct
Nine months after he was beaten into a coma by ultra-nationalists opposed to his conversion to Christianity, Turkish Christian Yakup Cindilli has for the first time managed to make personal contact with his Protestant Christian acquaintances. .... Cindilli suffered a severe beating and head injuries last October in an attack led by the local chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in Orhangazi, a town 30 miles from Bursa in northwestern Turkey. Three of his attackers, jailed on battery and assault charges, accused the Turkish Christian of passing out New Testaments and doing "missionary propaganda" in his hometown.
After two months in a coma under intensive hospital care, Cindilli regained consciousness and was sent home to recuperate last December. His assailants have all been released. Criminal court hearings on the case have been postponed until next June. .... Although his friends noted Cindilli spoke rationally, he was not always able to pronounce his words clearly, reflecting the lingering effects of his two-month coma. He had also gained considerable weight over the past four months, a condition which he said was being caused by the medications he is now taking. On the emotional level, another said, "Yakup's manner was not exactly that of a child, but more like that of a young teenager." After months of recuperating at home as a near invalid, he was clearly delighted to be traveling around on his own, one observed. "He showed us that he did not have full use of his right arm," commented one of his friends, who said he could only raise the limb slightly above his head. "But he was able to walk normally and seemed to be in good spirits." .... |