From Compass DirectAn e-mail message to several Turkish Protestant leaders in June surfaced in the Turkish press last week, revealing the names of Malatya officials alleged to have plotted the murder of three Christians there last April. The Firat (Mediterranean) News Agency (ANF) reported on September 18 that an anonymous e-mail message signed simply, “A.A.” had named a colonel in the Malatya gendarmerie, along with an Islamic faculty member, as instigators of the plot to kill the three Christians. The ANF article identified the petty officer as Mehmet Ulger but gave only the initials of several others.
A subsequent release from Birgun newspaper on September 19, however, listed the name of the faculty member as Ruhi Babat. It also identified a member of parliament from Malatya, one military commander and another suspect, all allegedly involved in the plot. .... Babat has written a university thesis on missionary activities in Turkey. ....
On April 18 at the Zirve Publishing office in Malatya in southeastern Turkey, two Turkish converts to Christianity and a German Christian were bound hand and foot, tortured with multiple stab wounds and had their throats cut. The victims were pastor Necati Aydin, 36; Ugur Yuksel, 32; and Tilmann Geske, 46. The ritual slayings appeared to be a deliberate observance of the Quranic instruction to “strike terror into the hearts of unbelievers” by smiting them above the neck and striking every finger (Surah 8:12). The victims’ fingertips were sliced repeatedly and their windpipes and esophagi severed.
The Malatya revelations were further stoked in the public forum on September 21, when FOX TV’s widely viewed Friday night “Objective” talk show hosted a controversial Turkish folk singer and his lyricist. Singer Ismail Turut and lyrics writer Arif Sirin are facing possible criminal charges for their racist song “Don’t Make Any Plans,” which appeared earlier this month with video images on website YouTube eulogizing the teenage killer of Armenian Christian journalist Hrant Dink last January.
The song concludes with the words, “If a person betrays the country, he is finished off. The sun of Turks and Islam will never set in the Black Sea.” During the broadcast, Sirin expressed hostile views against Christian missionary activities in Turkey, criticizing the three murdered Christians for “selling snails [forbidden food for observant Muslims] in a Muslim neighborhood.” .....