Turkey’s Christians are they really in danger? And from who?

At what point does a sensational sentence become more important than the personal safety of the subject it contains?

The recent case of Aljazeera English on “Turkey’s Unsafe Christians”, March 10, 2008, is an example. The opening sentence, “Christians in Turkey are living under a shadow of fear and insecurity due to a violent backlash by nationalist hardliners”, is a head turner, the reader is hooked immediately, it plays on our sympathy and compassion.

The report was shocking. It tells of a Christian missionary who is taunted by “conservative, nationalistic, religious angry young men who have a deep-seated aversion to being told to change their ways”, and was even kidnapped. This is sadly all too common in Turkey where Christian missionaries are seen by a staunchly nationalist youth as agents of the West sent to undermine the Turkish state.

The problem with the story is that it presents the argument as a religiously and culturally motivated one that is rooted in history: “Mistrust and hatred of Christianity has been embedded in the culture of the Black Sea region of Turkey for decades some say centuries.” It equates today’s nationalist youth with “the crusades and the First World War when the Christian minority in Turkey sided against the then Ottoman empire.”

This report then links this deeply rooted Black Sea nationalism with an horrific incident in a southern Turkish city over 500 kms away: “Recent attacks on Christians in Turkey have been very ferocious, including the torture and killing of a group of missionaries in the town of Malatya. Three youths currently face trial on charges relating to those attacks.”

The report failed to mention the recent arrests of over 30 members of an ultra-nationalist group called Ergenekon with alleged links to the Malayta killings and is believed to operate out of the Turkish Patriarchate, a Christian church in Istanbul.

Mustafa Akyol, an editor at the Turkish Daily News wrote on February 3: “It appears that the church might not only be linked to Ergenekon but could actually be its very base. According to the prosecutor, the church has been “the headquarters and the financial hub” of the covert gang.”

Today’s Zaman, Turkey’s leading conservative English language newspaper reported on January 29, that “Leaders of the Ergenekon gang had jointly decided to “OK”, the murders of three Christians in Malatya.”

The group are also allegedly linked to the slaying of Hrant Dink, an Armenian Turk, who was gunned down outside his office in February 2008 by a nationalist youth.

Ergenekon is suspected of shady links to groups hidden within the state. These groups are commonly referred to as Turkey's "deep state," a phenomenon in which individuals and groups occupying various state positions take justice into their own hands to shape Turkey in accordance with their political convictions.

Today’s Zaman also states: The Ergenekon organisation was working to create a chaotic atmosphere so that its counterparts in the military could overthrow the government, charges brought against the group by a law court in Istanbul has confirmed.”

If it is proven that Ergenekon, is linked to these killings, then the report on Turkey’s unsafe Christians by Aljazeera English takes on a different light.

On March 6, Bianet, an independent Turkish news portal, cited links to the “Susurluk incident”, a scandal that proved for many Turks the existence of the deep state in Turkey: “The roots of the gang are said to go back to the Susurluk case of 1996. A car accident in that city which shook Turkey because it revealed connections between the state, the mafia, and nationalist hit men.”

Cengiz Candar a columnist for the Turkish Daily News, states the importance of rooting out such organisations in Turkey. “Leaving things half-done will also prove how impossible it is to firmly attach Turkey within any particular structure of the “modern world” or of the European Union. The Ergenekon investigation is indeed one of the “most important incidents” of recent Turkish history toward securing the country's future.”

Fetiye Cetin, Dink’s family lawyer agrees and explains that proving the involvement of nationalist elements of Turkish security services in Dink’s murder will be a similar test: “If the government really wants democracy and rule of law, it has to solve this murder case. Because Turkey's enlightenment partly depends on the clarification of this case. It all comes down to some security forces. They should investigate and see if there was negligence or purposeful act.”

Turkish police were repeatedly warned of death threats to Dink, but failed to protect him.

The report therefore failed to look at why Turkey’s Christians are taunted and how Turkey’s youth, especially outside the commercial hubs such as Istanbul and Ankara are also victimised by such groups because the dire situation they find themselves in. Turkey suffers from high unemployment, 10 % nationwide but it doubles in areas like the Black Sea where at least 50 % of the population are below the age of 30 with little or no job prospects. They are swept into an unregistered economy, which creates a sense of failure and despair. The national education system itself is staunchly nationalist in nature and contributes to these feelings.

The sad fact that this reporting is still practised in Turkey means that it is a nation that is still deeply misunderstood