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Duhok: Christians Displaced by PKK-Turkey War Live in Limbo
Publication Date: 29/5/2021
Source: Basnews
Since the beginning of the heavy conflicts between the Turkish army and Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) guerrillas in Kani Masi area of Duhok, the Christian residents of an entire village are displaced.
Chalke village is located in an area where Turkey repeatedly bombards as it suspects the presence of the PKK fighters in the area. The Christian residents of the village, however, have been relocated to Bersive Complex, where they live in uncertainty.
The villagers are also concerned about their farmlands and crops being burned to ashes with the ongoing armed conflicts, saying if not destroyed by war, they will be destroyed by the fact that there remains no farmer to take care of crops.
Assyrian monk gets two years in a Turkish prison for giving a piece of bread
Publication Date: 7/4/2021
Source: Asia News
A Turkish court sentenced Assyrian monk Sefer (Aho) Bileçen to two years and a month in prison after he was convicted of providing “help to a terrorist organisation”.
The clergyman found himself up on terrorism charges after he gave a piece of bread to two people who had turned up at the gates of his monastery; prosecutors told the Mardin High Criminal Court that the people in question were members of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK).
The clergyman, who was not present in the courtroom, has always protested his innocence, and rejected the charges.
Turkey's illegal renditions of Syrian nationals back in spotlight
Author: Amberin Zaman
Publication Date: 1/7/2021
Source: Al-Monitor
The rendition of Syrian nationals to Turkey, where they are prosecuted and jailed on thinly evidenced terror charges, has returned to the spotlight with the life sentencing by a Turkish court of three men of the Syriac Orthodox Christian faith to life in prison. Lawyers say the June 22 verdict violates Turkish and international humanitarian law and reflects the unlawful actions of Turkish forces and their Sunni rebel proxies in the large swaths of territory that Turkey occupies in northern Syria.
Papal statement would help mobilize int’l community: Erdoğan
Publication Date: 17/5/2021
Source: Daily Sabah
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a phone call with Pope Francis Monday underlined that the pope's continued messages and reactions concerning Israeli attacks on the Palestinians will help mobilize the international community, as well as the Christian world.
Stating that an “atrocity” is being committed in Palestine, Erdoğan added that Israel is answerable to not only the Palestinian people but the whole of humanity, including Christians and Muslims.
Erdoğan further highlighted that Israel, which is blocking access to Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and limiting freedom of worship, is undermining human honor while also endangering regional security.
He stated that all of humanity must unite in the face of Israel’s illegal and inhumane practices that also violate the status of Jerusalem.
Interview: Reopening Muslim Minds to Freedom and Tolerance
Author: Todd Johnson
Publication Date: 21/6/2021
Source: Christianity Today
In 1900, 7 million Christians lived in countries that were majority Muslim; in 2020, 84 million Christians did.
Also in 1900, 9 million Muslims lived in countries that were majority Christian; in 2020, 154 million Muslims did.
Meanwhile, Christians and Muslims have grown from comprising a third of the world’s population in 1800 to more than half today and are projected to comprise two-thirds by 2100.
These statistics from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity (CSGC) at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary underscore the need for Christian and Muslim minorities to better flourish in each other’s contexts.
CSGC codirector Todd Johnson interviewed Turkish journalist Mustafa Akyol about his new book, Reopening Muslim Minds, and about how an honest examination of the best and worst of Islamic history offers lessons for improving religious freedom and pluralism today:
Christian villagers under fire in Turkey-PKK clashes
Author: Yousif Musa
Publication Date: 17/6/2021
Source: Rudaw
Navkandalan is a Christian village in the Batifa sub-district of Zakho in northern Duhok.
The Christian population there has plummeted from 70 to 40 because of conflict between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkey.
The village’s residents demand protection.
How Turkey Eradicated Its Christian Minorities
Author: Rami Dabbas
Publication Date: 19/5/2021
Source: Israel Today
Christians represented 20 percent of the Turkish population at the beginning of the 20th century, but by today their number have decreased to a mere 0.2 percent.
The first Assyrians arrived in Armenia in 1805 from Turkey and Persia, a process that accelerated significantly in 1828 and between 1915-1918.
What caused this migration? What is the situation of Christian minorities in Turkey compared to in Armenia?
Turkey’s Long Persecution Against Pontian Christians
Author: Uzay Bulut
Publication Date: Hellenic News
Source: 17/6/2021
In the Turkish city Trabzon, where few Christians are left, St. Maria Catholic Church has suffered its second attack this year. A gunman shot at the church on March 6, but there were no causalities because no one was inside at the time. The congregation is the only active one in Trabzon and has barely a dozen members.
International media first noticed St. Maria on February 5, 2006, when Oğuzhan Akdin murdered Father Andrea Santoro, an Italian Catholic priest who served there. In 2011, it emerged that the police had tapped Santoro’s phones for three months before his murder. Authorities had marked him as a suspect active in “separatist activities based on the Pontian Greek idea,” that is, establishing a Greek Orthodox state in the Black Sea area.
